now similar to what they seem to have been from the account given of them in Holy Writ. The extremity of the Red Sea is a few miles above the town, and thither travelers sometimes proceed to have the pleasure of placing one foot on African, the other on Arabian ground.
The entire journey through Egypt from Alexandria to Suez is usually performed in seventy-two hours; and to afford time for travelers getting forward, the steamers for India do not start for several hours later.
Suez to India. Suez is a poor, walled town, situated at the head of
the Red Sea, and sustains its existence principally by the trade of the
great caravans of pilgrims from Egypt in their journey to Mecca. Latterly,
it has come a little into note by being made the point of embarkation
for India. The pasha built a very large and handsome hotel at Suez,
the only decent-looking building in the place. The water here is all highly
saline: it contains a considerable quantity of pure alkali, and is well
adapted for washing—that used by Europeans for drinking is brought from
the Nile. Coal is also transported across the Desert from Cairo on camels,
and here costs £6 a ton.
Quitting Suez, a long pull of nearly two miles through shallows and intricate channels brings you to the roadstead, where the steamer waits your reception—the smoking funnel and roaring steam giving note of a preparation for a start. The Gulf of Suez, which comes to a point a little way above the town, is about three miles across at the place from which the steamer starts. The distance from Suez to Aden is sixteen hundred miles due south-east; that from Aden to Bombay is nineteen hundred and sixty miles east and by north. Passengers to Calcutta are accommodated in the magnificent steamers of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company, each from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, and four hundred to five hundred horse-power. These vessels proceed straight to Aden, this part of the route being common to both; then stretch away south-east for Ceylon, nearly at right angles to the path pursued by the Bombay vessels. The Bombay passengers are conveyed by the packets or war-steamers of the Indian navy: a portion of these are from seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty tons burden, and from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty horse-power. Two very superior vessels, each of twelve hundred tons and four hundred horse-power, have lately been put on the line, and two others of still larger dimensions are now in process of construction. It was on board the Acbar, a first-rate ship, commanded by one of the most popular officers of the Indian navy, that we found ourselves on Christmas eve 1845. The traveler towards the East, who has been dragging by each remove a lengthening chain—who has found semi-tropical Europe at Gibraltar and Malta, and fairly tasted of the Orient in Egypt—at length finds a floating fragment of India before him at Suez. The talk becomes exclusively of Bombay: inquiries are made after old places and friends, and England is spoken of as now a distant country, not soon to be seen again. The regulations as to dress, discipline, etc., are the same in the Indian as in the royal navy; and the packets are in all respects regarded as ships of war. To the old Indian, everything looks familiar; to the visitor for the first time to the East, all seems a fragment and foretaste of what is to come. Seldom,
