18 MEER ALI MOORAD, 



time only extended to witliln twenty-eight 

 miles of that port. The formation of this rail- 

 road has certainly supplied employment to 

 many thousand Fellahs or Arab cultivators, but 

 I doubt whether they profit otherwise by the 

 increased transit, as Egypt still exhibits more 

 squalid misery than is, I believe, anywhere 

 else to be found, both in the persons and dwell- 

 ings of the Fellahs. We quitted Cairo on the 

 evening of the 19th October, and found the rail- 

 way arrangements tolerably good and the of- 

 ficials civility itself I had no small difficulty 

 though in starting the Meer's attendants, who 

 had unpacked everything whilst at Cairo, but 

 luckily the train did not leave for an hour after 

 the apJ)ointed time, so nobody was left behind. 

 His Highness I always found extremely good- 

 natured and amenable to reason, but like all 

 princes, and especially all Eastern princes, he 

 fancies that the world is made for himself. 

 Take him, however, all in all, Meer Ali Moorad 

 is the best specimen of an Eastern sovereign 

 that I ever came across. His Highness' appear- 

 ance and manners are highly in his favour. For 

 an Asiatic he is largely built and of highly im- 

 posing presence. On horse-back he is seen to 



