There Might Have Been An Avenue Of
Pompey's Pillars Within Reach, And A Live Sphinx Sporting On The
Banks Of The Mahmoodieh Canal, And We Would Not Have Stirred To See
Them, Until Punch Had Had His Interview And Galignani Was
Dismissed.
The curiosities of Alexandria are few, and easily seen.
We went
into the bazaars, which have a much more Eastern look than the
European quarter, with its Anglo-Gallic-Italian inhabitants, and
Babel-like civilisation. Here and there a large hotel, clumsy and
whitewashed, with Oriental trellised windows, and a couple of
slouching sentinels at the doors, in the ugliest composite uniform
that ever was seen, was pointed out as the residence of some great
officer of the Pasha's Court, or of one of the numerous children of
the Egyptian Solomon. His Highness was in his own palace, and was
consequently not visible. He was in deep grief, and strict
retirement. It was at this time that the European newspapers
announced that he was about to resign his empire; but the quidnuncs
of Alexandria hinted that a love-affair, in which the old potentate
had engaged with senile extravagance, and the effects of a potion
of hachisch, or some deleterious drug, with which he was in the
habit of intoxicating himself, had brought on that languor and
desperate weariness of life and governing, into which the venerable
Prince was plunged. Before three days were over, however, the fit
had left him, and he determined to live and reign a little longer.
A very few days afterwards several of our party were presented to
him at Cairo, and found the great Egyptian ruler perfectly
convalescent.
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