The Newtown bee., 1895-04-05

|
 tians think Gen Grant was pretty biz
 man; and, as far as I could ascertain
 this opinion is the only thing in whici | we agree with them.
 Alexandria, like most other Easterl
 c ties, has it's quarters where the variou: nationalities congregate and live. Here
 we find the Frankish quarter and tht
 Arabian quarter; and the contrast is as
 strong as between light and darkness. ,rs THE FRENCH HAVE BUILT
 up solid blocks of stores which would dc
 credit to New York. 1 went into a jew eller's store to have some small attention
 given to my watch, which, like myself,
 had suffered from the upheavel of the
 sea, and 1 was surprised at the complete
 ness of she establishment. Our dinner at
 the Kbedivial pleasantly introduced us to 1 Eastern hotel life. The hotel is built
 around the four sides of hollow square. Nearly all the rooms open out upon bal. | comics overlooking this square, so that
 one can step out from his room at any
 time to CT joy the coolness of the air and
 the fragrance of tropical plants that
 grow in the court below. In the centre
 Of this court is usually the dining room,
 with very high ceiling and plants and birds here ard there to enliven the scene.
 
 l best hotelries; but from the poorer ones, with all their fleas and damp walls and mysterious connections which are
 brought from the kitchen we can only pray, Good Lord, deliver us.
 Our ride>of l31 miles from Alexander to Cairo was revelation at almost every turn of the car wheel. Strange sights kept us ever on the qui vive of excitement and al-o kept us gesticulating at the sta- ti"ns to the natives in an endeavor to have them put our anxious queries at rest, In all this distance we passed but one wagon or any other sort of vehicle, and yet there is constant portage of all kinds of freight, How is this freight carried. On the backs of camels and by the accommodation, local, but never ex- press. donkey trains. The Oriental don. key. Shall we ever forget him? Diminu- tive, patient, plodding fellow, he is ev- eryv here; and with such sober face and such an air of injured innocence! He never gets tired, for his driver will work so lorg as there is 8 nimble six pence anywhere in sight; he never gets s'rat- tied" DO matter how many cameIs, pe- destrians and other donkeys crowd upon him in a narrow street. And what loads he carries! Again and again we have seen him with a big fellow astride his back, the feet of the big fellow touching the pavement; and we have felt that it was downright shame for the big fellow not to dismount and put the donkey on his shoulder and carry him along. While l think of if,
 LET ME TELL YOU TRUE INCIDENT that the subject of donkey suggests. Al gentleman in our party, minister from abg church in Cleveland, O., and his wife were riding on donkeys side by side through the streets of Cairo one evening, "'doipg" the city, as they say. You know that in England and elsewhere when one person meets another in riding, he turns to the left. This custom puzzled us Americans considerably; for, in coming into a strange place we were at 8 loss to know just what to do, that we might not appear as green as grass. So the rever- end gentleman from Ohio was no sooner mounted than he said to the donkey boy following at his side: ''Now, if should meet another donkey, ought l to go to the left?' and then the reverand gentle man's wife laughed heartily, and for the life of him the dominic could not see where the fun came in.
 But 1 muet not let the donkey carry me l too far from my marked out track. What ! makes Egypt? There is only one answer | the River Nile. Egypt is not a great power among the nations. She now is l the tennis ball that France and England | have been knocking back and forth over | the net of diplomacy; but that Egpyt is 1 not stronger as nation is not the fault ! of old Father Nile. The fault lies with | the government of the "unspeakable | Turk, who. as ruler. taxes his own | powers in sens uous living, and | ta xes the life and energy out of the peo- i pie by the heavy burdens which he i'm | poses. All along our railroad ride to Cairo we saw the irrigafing of the land | going on, and, what is more remarkable, | going on in just the way that it was l done thousands of years ago. Canals are | cut in every direction through the coun l try there are no fences, the canals take l their place. From these canals smaller | and smaller ditches are cut until a vast | district is covered. Sometimes two men | stand in the stream and swing with | clock-like regularity water-tight basket | between them. It's contents are thrown | upon the land, and there the water is di- l verted with the foot to the place where | it is needed. This sight recalled plainly l the promise that Was given to the Israel | they should SOW seed with the hand. l where they should not water with the | foot, but where the rain should fall from l heaven.
 The Egyptian railway is 8 good one :; 1 and the express, though hardly equalling 1 the Empire State Express" still | brought us to Cairo in five hours.
 CAIRO IS A BIG CITY. It is, indeed, the largest city in Egypt and the second largest in the Turkish l empire. It has population of 100000, more or less, for the exact enumeration 1 of d vast horde of idle vagrants, who live nowhere or anywhere as 1t may happen, and whose names seem all to be Moham- med, is task beyond any government l You meet in Cairo ssall sorts and condi- 1 tions of men," Upon its streets was re- minded of the old nursery rhyme, where the motley throDg going to a certain city were described thus
 "Some had rags,
 And some had tags;
 And some wore velvet gowns"
 Go into Shepheard's hotel, and you will find the richest and most cultured people of Europe, who have come into this southern climate to escape the Iigors of their winter homes. Then step down into the street and at once find yourself in the midst of dirty, noisy, jostling crowd. who only know enough to cry s.Backsheesh'' and not enough to go in when it rains, as for months at 8 time it does not rain here, and these people, many of them, have absolutely no homes to go into when it does.
 The first evening we went to see the bowling dervishes. In what seemed to be an old ruin amid great banks of sand we found them. As you look at these people, more like madmen or hyenas than sane human beings, you do not know which feeling is uppermost in your breast, pity or disgust. They stand or n u nfrrla O nAo oo Nrfv asnouTnful, monotonous ditty, they pi- rc1lette from side to side or utter nuearth