| decide upon my destination. At length an Arab, calling himself
Hamad, and representing himself as a professed dragoman, came to
my assistance, and relieved me of the disagreeable pressure. He
assisted me in passing through the Custom House, which was a
small affair. I then hired a carriage, and had myself conveyed with
my baggage to the United States Consulate-General, where, after
exhibiting a letter of introduction from Mr. Adams, the American
minister in London, I was most kindly received by Mr. Hale, the
Consul-General, a very polite and well-educated gentleman from
New England.
Learning from Mr. Hale that the next railway train from Cairo
that day would start about an hour's time, I deposited my baggage
in his office, and taking a letter from him to the United States
Consul at Cairo, I hastened to the railway station; and, arriving
just in time to get a ticket and procure a seat, I was soon whirling
up the valley of the Nile at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
I looked at my ticket, and found that it was printed in Arabic
characters. I felt a strong desire to retain it as a curiosity, but was
obliged to give it up at the end of the journey.
After losing sight of Pompey's pillar, Cleopatra's needle, and
the city of Alexandria, we came suddenly upon villages consisting
altogether of mud huts. I then began to realize that I was in Egypt-
the land which every Sabbath-school boy desires to see, as he reads
the simple narrative of Joseph and his brethren—of Moses con-
cealed in the ark of bulrushes—of the persecution, hard labour,
and exodus of the Jews—of the haughty and tyrannical Pharaoh—
and of the flight of Mary and Joseph with the infant Saviour. All
these things crowded into my mind; and everything in the scenery
through which we passed seemed to call up incidents in Sacred
Writ.
In the vegetation which presents itself there is a pleasing and
curious variety. There are palms, oranges, lemons, mulberry, pome-
granate, olive, lime, grape, cactus, sycamores, gorgeous roses, and
gigantic oleanders. I was so deeply interested by the novelty of
everything, and at the same time its seeming familiarity—as if I
had lived for years in the land—that the five hours between
Alexandria and Cairo passed away almost imperceptibly.
But there was one drawback to my enjoyment—the incessant
cigar-smoking kept up by my fellow passengers in the carriage.
In Egypt everybody smokes. If you are travelling in company,
or visiting a friend, or a friend comes to visit you, you must either
smoke or be smoked. Woe to the man who cannot endure the
scent of tobacco ! There are never any complimentary inquiries
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