98

DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF NATIVES.

Souakem, walk side by side presenting the most striking contrasts of face, figure, and dress, and the want of it. There were also pointed out to me, Mughreby Arabs from Western Africa, with sullen and half menacing appearances. I was told that many of these Ishmaelites know nothing of the division of time into hours. Many of them live habitually for nine months in the year without tasting either bread or water. The stinted shrubs growing at intervals in the Desert enable their camel mares to yield a little milk, and this furnishes the sole food and drink of the people for that period. During the three months when this resource fails, these savages are forced to pass into other districts to gather the most wretched and scanty subsistence. To the Mohammedan, Suez is well known as his resting place when on a pilgrimage to Mecca. To the devout Christian this district is intensely interesting, as it was hereabout the stupendous manifestation of divine power was exhibited when the Israelites of old, guided by Moses, traversed the Red Sea. It has already been stated that on the African side of Suez, there is the range of the Attaka,-mountains of Deliverance; and on the Asiatic side there is the range of Djebel Ruhah mountains, both ranges running from north to south along the western and eastern shores of the gulf. Suez lies as if in a cradle between these mountain ranges, and surrounded, as I have said, by the swamps and shoals and arms of the Red Sea. The mouldering walls of the town are constructed of shells and madrepores, mixed in mud. The houses are built of bricks dried in the sun.

The town itself is one of the most deserted, diseased, and dirty to be found in either Africa or Asia. It consists

of open spaces and narrow lanes. The open spaces are

SUEZ MEAN AND MISERABLE.

99

crowded with crouching camels, munching their food and drinking their water preparatory to crossing the Desert in every direction. Along the lanes, the natives are sleeping in the shade like swine in a pig-sty, the corners being filled with filth, and consisting of dreary ruinous houses. In the whole horizon there is not a green tree or shrub, with the exception of the rag tree, probably for a distance of eighty miles, or a drop of fresh water, all supplies of sweet water being fetched from the Nile near Grand Cairo. There is a dismal dearth of everything desirable at Suez, unless the raw traveller like myself from Europe may wish to enjoy a sight of grinning hyenas or yelping jackalls. Four or five rusty dismounted cannon indicate the strength of Suez as a fortification, and some singularly built ships, high at the stern, and very clumsy, show an antiquity nearly equal to that of the Ark. The whole picture of misery and mud presents a general aspect mean and melancholy. The women seem all to be old and ugly, or perhaps the younger portion of them are not permitted to appear. They wear a dirty covering over their face, leaving only the eyes and part of the chin, and long angular lower jaw, exposed. The children almost naked, and in a lothsome state of filth, and crawling with vermin, lie everywhere sprawling in the sun. In the bazaars everything is dear and dirty. To all this the English Hotel is an entire exception. It is kept also by Shepherd, and conducted by Dempsie and his active wife. Here, now, whatever it may have been formerly, there is everthing clean, I had letters from Mr. Davidson at Alexandria to Mr. Lerwick, English consul, and to Captain Linguist, Agent for the Transit company; and all

kind, and comfortable.

100

PART FROM MY FAMILY

I can say is, that the kindness and consideration of these three gentlemen to me and to mine, and to every body else, was beyond description.

I accompanied my son John and daughter Mary on board of the Haddington; and had to encounter the severe trial of a separation from them. I was sorry to part from the party going to India, with whom I had traversed the ocean for thousands of miles. One of these, a colonel in the army, and Governor of Hong-Kong, was an amiable, honourable, and accomplished member of England's aristocracy. One was a Lieutenant of the Navy, young in years but ripe in judgment, and bearing on his countenance the stamp of calm decision. One learned and ever laughing, was communicative and very kind to everybody, and especially to the young. Some were merchants and mercantile men of gentlemanly manners, with their ladies, as were all the other ladies on board, fitted to adorn the society of the east. Some were young and gay cadets just let loose from the trammels of parental restraint, knowing little and fearing nothing. Others were boys who had never before been from their home of rural solitude, whose minds were as yet like a sheet of white paper, ready to take any impression provided it seemed to them to be for the good. Some were officers of the army, high-minded, reckless of danger, and determined on duty, but more distinguished for their animal courage than for their Christian humility. Some were going out for the first time. But several had already been in the far east, and that to very good purpose, and they had come back to the western world to take out their amiable and elegant partners in life: or these, with or without their children, were hurrying with intense anxiety and affection