The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-22
ATLAST GOOD BYE TO EGYPT
ONE WHO HAS BEEN THERE IS JOY
 OUS TO GET AWAY.

l
 When a man has put one hundred
 and thirty most dusty and uncomforta-
 b1e miles of railroading between him.
 self and Cairo, and is so far out of the
 Egyptian wilderness as to have reached
 Alexandria, he may well pause and
 think the thing over. He is not entirely
 out of 1t as yet Beggars are as numer-
 GUS and as importunate as at Luxor,
 and those file solicitors, unnamed else
 where, swarm as thickly about the Ho-
 tel Khedival as about Shepheards. In
 each city their filthy calling is equally
 bold and equally fashionable. But
 there is a sweet smell of sea in the air.
 There is dust to be sure; but it is a
 bona-fide dust; not a compound of filth
 and mummy germs. There is activity;
 thrift; go; signs of progressive and
 profitable barter; paved streets and
 paved sidewalks; blocks of fine build ings, rows of such massive warehouses
 that you ask in wonder if Egypt has l bOhlAllSlC CG GIOuSA lO supply lIleIlg dIlu you wonder still more when figures and
 facts are put before you. Cotton in
 bales and wheat in bags are sent from Alexandria all over the world. Even | New England spinners are finding Egyptian cotton of use in their spin
 ming and are buying it in larger quan- titles every year. When you have seen Pompeys pillar and the other poor sights of the place. and are comforta- bly, seated in a rather musty room, booked to sail at an early hour in the morning, you ask yourself as fair, square, judicial man, is your opinion, tip to date, of Egypt a correct one? Is the dust so venimous? Are the people so vile and so venal? Were the folks on the boat so disagreeable? Was your bunk so narrow, so hard and so ungeta- ble? Did the party next door snore so heroically? Was the food so abomina- ble? Were the dragomen such igno- rant frauds and such expert cheats with their bogus scarabs and their deals with. the natives? Were nine tenths of the ruins such unmitigated disappointments? Were so many peo- pie actually taken so sick that they had to land and turn back? Going over the whole ground quietly and slowly; Investigating each allegation seriously and impassively, cross-exam- ming each claim with legal profundity and judicial equity; the verdict as put must stand; the Judgment of the court cannot be altered. Egypt of to-day is the biggest fraud in the tourists book of travel.
 If the traveller in Cairo be anxious to know what he is breathing let him mount the citadel and look towards the city He will see floating an over it a reddish brown cloud, thiclest where there is the most going, that is where the hotels are. This cloud is composed of infinitesimal atoms of the street dust kicked up by horse, donkey and human which no shower allays, no wind is suf- ficiently strong to sweep away. If he would pursue investigation further and know of what the street dust be com posed let him take a seat at any street corner, recall its historic ingredients and watch the native contributions. If after half an hour of this investigation. he doesn't call for his bill and leave town it will only be because he is will ling to back his own hearty microbes against the diseased microbes of both. | past and present. How reputable phy- | sicians can send parties with weak | lungs to Egypt is beyond comprehen- sion Yet they are doing it all the while. They can't possibly know any thing of the climate of the place.
 Still there is no use in writing in this | strain. Egypt has the "call." Every body knows what that means, though | A. 1, to a foreigner. This morning Shep- heards was turning people away by the score, and hundreds more are expected next week They will have to put up with the small Egyptian houses where Persian powder is unknown and where they can come into as immediate con tact with the ways and manners of the natives as the most romantic blue of Boston can desire.
 By the by, rather good thing oc- cured at dinner at the Hotel d'Angle- terre the other day. At the head of one of the tables set large, sedate and American. Right and left of him were English women of the class that likes to abuse America and Ameri- cans to Americans. They told them they had heard: "Only heard you Snow'-of some American ladies who had got into the harem and had per suaded the ladies of the harem to ex- change their jewels for imitation jewels from Birmingham Did you say Bir- Madame? Then the Ameri- 1an ladies must have been of English "Ohl you quite had me there; 1idn't you? You are quite quick, aren't you?" "Oh, not at all I am always prepared for such remarks from Eng ish people of certain classes" The certain classes" finished them, The 1ext day the large, sedate and venera- ole American had the end of the table o himself with the exception of a coun- ryman, who thought the occasion mould be celebrated. Well, well; so goes the world. The ( Americans are on top this year. Of the up the Nile, three-quar- |, CTS bear Americans; and three-quar- CTS of the most expensive apartments # the hotels are also occupied by Amer l cans. They are spending money with l recl1lessness which seems in anticipa- : ion of ruin. The English are wiser, re living economically as Egypt will ! .dmit and are trimming sail to be