The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-08-06

OF street cars and automobiles. Its
citizens walk or ride to its theaters
by the light of electricity, and its rich
men gamble by reading n lck
in its stock exchange. 1t is q town
of big hotels. gay cafes and palaces
galore. In addition 10 the 100000
Mohammedars, there are more han
100, 600 Christian Europeans now lv-
ing in it. and among them some OF
the smartest business men Of the
Mediterranean sea. The city has be-
come commercial, money making ana
fortune hunting. The rise and fall
of stocks, the boom in real estate and
the modern methods OF getting some
thing for nothing are its chief sub
jects Of conversation, and the whole
population is after the elusive piastre
and the Egyptian pound as earnestly
as the American is chasing the nicke!
and the dollar.
A~lexandria's New Iiarbor.
1t is easy to see where A~lexaadria's
wealth comes from. 1t is growing fat
from the trade Of the Nile valley. 1t
IS the water gate TO Egypt and the
goods that goes in and out has to
pay toll. More han four thousand
ships enter this port every year, and
there are now vessels in the harbor
from nearly every part Of the world.
| came to Egypt from Malta on a ship
DOGiiu ~ II4id ci-lI diio 1AlA
| can get a steamer any week which
within fifteen days viii take me 10
New York. The German lines are
making a specially Of Egyptian pas
& and freight, and they are
gradually capturing the bulk OF the
Mediterranean commerce
Alexandria has one Of the best har-
bors on the Mediterranean. The port
has been improved within the past
few years until its arrangements for
loading and unloading goods are un-
surpassed. It has a breakWater Two
miles in length and the biggest ocean
can come right UP to the
quay. There are $500 acres Of water
in which ships al rave a safe an
chorage, and many vessels come here
to coal. The most Of the coal IS
brought from England. and left until
the ships need il, Something y
II. 900. 600 tons were thus handled last
year, many of the steamers on their
way into and out from the Suez
canal stop at Alexandria for fuel
[ do not know how much the mar
Dor has cost. save that it runs high
into the millions Of dollars When
Mehamet Ali made Alexandria his
capital the place was only a village
with no connection with the Nile. He
dug a canal fifty miles long to that
great waterway. and there Is now a
stream of vessels going up and down
that canal carrying goods into the al
ley and bringing the cotton. sugar,
grain and other products out to the
sea. The canal was constructed by
forced labor. The felleheen, to the
number Of a quarter Of a million,
scooped the sand out with their hands
and carried it away in basket II
took them a year to lie the fifty mile
ditch, and they were so o~veTWoTked
that $4,000 died on the job. Mehamet
Ali also spent an enormous amount on
the harbor. and Ismail Pasha laid out
more than $4,000. 900 in the same
way. Since the English took hold
they have been steadily making 9TH
er Improvements. and they have
works now under way which will cost
port is increasing enormously, and
the city promises to become even
greater than it has been in the past.
Egypt III 1907.
The conditions at Alexandria are
typical of the new Egypt Old Mother
Nile has drawn on the seven-league
boots of modern progress and she ls
growing in wealth like a jimson weed
in an asparagus bed. When / first
visited her a quarter of a century
ago. her country was a land Of the
dead. with the obel!sks and the Ply
ramids as its chief landmarks. Then
its most interesting characters were
the mummified kind Of 1000 odd
years ago and her chief visitors We're
antiquity hunters and ore-lunged
tourists after a warm winter climate
These same characters are here TO-DAY.
but in addition have come the cap
italist the syndicate and the ardent
dollar chaser. Egypt is now q land Of
banks and stock exchanges. II throngs
with civil engineers. irrigation ex-
perts and men interested in the devel-
opment of the country by electricity
and steam The delta or the great fan