We left Alexandria in the afternoon, in company with an officer of the army of occupation, and travelled along a route, to us, new and full of interest. The railway at first passes along enormous mounds of broken pottery. And here I may mention that in the East, often when all traces of buildings have disappeared, fragments of pottery remain to attest the former existence of buildings. The reason of this is that pottery is almost indestructible. Houses, temples, churches, may have been laid in ruins, the materials broken up and carried away, but a "potter's vessel" when once broken is useless for any purpose; no one cares for it, and it is left to add to the accumulations which take place at every town or village.
Soon we emerged on the Garden of Egypt, the fertile Delta of the Nile, without which, indeed, Egypt would be but a rocky or sandy desert penetrated by a deep gulf, as the Egyptian priests informed Herodotus was its original condition. Interminable fields of maize, cotton, sugarcane, and other produce cultivated by the fellahin, succeed each other, irrigated by means of little water-wheels, sometimes worked by men, sometimes by bullocks, the water carried in narrow channels made by the feet, and allowed, when required, to flow over the beds containing seed; all probably very much as in the time of Ptolemy, if not even earlier. Groves of the date-palm, with enormous clusters of golden fruit, rose aloft above the level of the Delta, or formed small clumps near the villages.
The cultivation of the palm, and of other fruit trees, was largely extended by Mehemet Ali, who made a decree promising remission of a certain amount of taxation for each tree planted. This had the desired effect. On producing a certificate of having planted so many trees the fellahin had his taxes reduced. Some time after, when the work of plantation had been accomplished, the decree was repealed, and a tax was put on the trees—a financial operation of questionable probity, but beneficial to the Government and to the cultivator, who enjoyed the fruits of his labour.
We passed several towns and villages of the fellahin; of the latter nothing can be conceived more miserable as human abodes, and in comparison with which a village in Connaught might be considered worthy of admiration. The houses consist of small mud cabins huddled together, in which men, women, and children share the space with dogs, fowls, and pigeons. The cow or donkey does not require shelter at night in this part of the world;—so is excluded from the family circle.
