Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-07

since arisen from the ashes OF the
bombardment of seven years ago, and 1t Is
now the size Of Cleveland or Washington.
Its buildings are European rather than
Arabic and its streets have French names.
Cairo, the city OF the Arabian Nights, is fast
becoming a city of Partisan nights, and the
Mohammedan call TO prayer is mingled
with the bacchanalian songs of the cafe
chantants.
Modern science is pulling the mummies
from the pyramids. A telephone line runs
almost to the very ear Of the Sphinx, and
the old lady is being pulled from the sand
by modern iron cars made in Europe. There
is hotel at the base of the Pyramid OF
Cheops, in which English men and women
drink brandy and soda, and the spirit Of the
nineteenth century with some of its virtues
and all OF its vices is breathing new lie into
the land of the Phsraohs. Egypt had more
than 9 600 American visitors this winter, and
the amount left here by Cooks tourists
alone is now, 1 am told, about s., SOC, 900
year.
FASHIONABLE RESORT.
Cairo is becoming winter residence city,
and it has hundreds OF mansions which
would do credit to New York or Paris. Real
estate has rapidly risen in value, and the
land upon which the baby Moses lay in the
bullrushes is now worth a big price per
SQUARE foot When / visited Cairo about
eight years ago the donkey was the chief
hackney cab of the foreigner, and men,
women and children went sightseeing on
long-eared beasts with donkey boys in blue
gowns following behind and punching up
the animals by poking sharp sticks into
patches OF bare flesh as big as dollar, each
of which had been denuded OF skin for the
purpose.
The hotels had Egypti2n servants in tur-
bans and gowns, and vol called your boy to
your room by clapping your bands. Now
the Ishmaelitish hack driver has taken the
town, and, though he wears fez cap, his
dress is European and his cheek is as hard
as that of an American cabby. The donkey
bows, though they are as bright as ever,
have lost their monopoly, and their custom
ers are confined to foreign men and e the
natives Inside the walls of Shepherds
Hotel, where 1 am stopping, you are as far
from old Egypt as you would be in the
Grand Hotel at Paris. The servants are
French, speaking Swiss, in black swallow
tail coats. The chambel, have electric
bells, and the 81 day which you pay for
your board does not include either candles
or soap.
The house is packed full, and there are
counts by the score and lords by the dozen.
At dinner you see half che men in steel pen
coats and the women in trails, low necks
and short sleeves There is babel of En-
slish, French and German, and the only
evidence that you are in the land of the
Pharoahs is the tall palm trees which look
wonderingly in at the windows.
A REAL ESTATE BOOM.
The dahibeye or sail boat, which was
formerly the only means of going up the
Nile, has been superseded by steamers as
comfortable as those which cross the Allan
tic, and the journey from Cairo to the inte-
rior of Nubia is one of the easiest and
pleasantest in the world. There are now
more than a thousand miles of railroad
track in Egypt, and travelled to Cairo from
Suez in an express train, which made as
good speed as that of our trunk lines
The steam engine screeched as we passed
through the land of Goshen and at one OF
the stations while telegraphing to Cairo, 1
asked the price oil land in this country
which Joseph gave to his father, and was
told that it was worth at least $3.50 au acre.
Our steamboat in coming up the Red Sea
crossed the path over which Moses led the
1sraelites, and IN which Pharoah was
drowned, and 1 drove out this afternoon in
an American buggy to the site of Heliopo-
lis, where Plato studied, and near which
stands the old tree in whose hollow trunk
the Virgin Mary hid herself with the child
Jesus during the fight to Egypt.
In passing through the streets of Cairo 1
saw the troops of the Khedive, clad in
uniform like that of the soldiers Of Europe,
and among them were English officers and
the red coats of the English army OF occu-
patton. The great governments of Europe
now control Egypt. England dictates the
actions of the Khedive, and foreign in
fuence permeates every part of the Govern
ment The European bondholders practic- |
ally own the country, and the lands of the |
Nile, if sold out at auction, would hardly |
bring the value OF the mortgages which the |
Rothschilds and others hold upon them.
The people are ground down by taxation
now as they have been under the most ex-
travagant of their rulers in the past, and the
Egyptian Improvements above mentioned,
which are mainly for the benefit OF the for
eigners have come out OF the peasants.
Whatever Egypt may be in the future it is
terribly oppressed to-day, and the story of
Ireland is nothing in comparison with the
present condition OF Egypt.
AN OPPRESSED PEOPLE.
The Egyptians should be the richest in
stead OF The poorest people of the world.
What a wonderful country they havel 1t
is a valley Of gusno in the midst of desert.
teens with crops as green as Kansas in
June. 1t produces from two to three crops
every year, an6 its soil gives out through
the ages bounteous crops with no other fer
tilizer than this water of the Nile. Egypt
is the gift of the Nile, and a wonderful gilt
tits. The country under the Khedive to-
day is the narrowest kingdom OF the world. |
Extending between 800 and 900 miles above |
Cairo, its cultivable soil is nowhere more |
than nine miles wide, and below here it |
spreads out in great, green fan, the ribs of
which are each q little more than 100 miles
long, and the top of which does not measure
much more than the ribs. This fan is the |
famed Delta of the Nile, and with this long |
narrow valley above it it makes the Egypt |
of to-day. On the sides of this valley are |
great tracts OF desert OF sand of q glaring |
yellow silver, more sterile than the plains !
Of Colorado or the alkali plains OF the 1
Rockies. The Egyptian desert is absolutely /
bare. The rich fields OF Egypt come to its
edge on either side, and you can step from
the greenest Of grass on to the dryest of
sand, and standing on .ihe green with your
face toward the desert, for as tar as the eye |
can reach see nothing but bleak, bare sand.
The whole of the soil Of Egypt has been