EGYPT. 



ENGINEERING. 



313 



ing Emm Bey to work out his destiny in the 

 interior region. It seems that Dr. Schnitzler 

 has been assisted by Dr. Junker, a Russian 

 subject, whose arrival at Zanzibar on the 4th 

 of December of this year has inspired the Brit- 

 ish Government with the idea of sending a 

 " rescue expedition " to Emin Bey, who, it is 

 alleged, is placed in great peril by reason of 

 the attack made upon the King of Unyoro by 

 the King of Uganda. The last letter, dated 

 July 7th of this year, however, makes no men- 

 tion of his dangers, but speaks particularly of 

 the scientific work in which he is engaged, 

 and of the small-pox epidemic, which is deci- 

 mating the country. Several days after the 

 arrival of Dr. Junker, the following dispatch 

 was received from Zanzibar, dated Decem- 

 ber 10 : " Dr. Junker, who arrived here last 

 week from the interior of Africa, will leave on 

 the 21st for Cairo. He reports that Emin 

 Pasha, by the latest advices, was well, and had 

 reduced the rebels to submission as far as Lar- 

 do, on the White Nile, with which place he 

 was holding daily communication by steamer." 

 The " Kreuz Zeitung," of Berlin, in comment- 

 ing on the work of the East African Delimita- 

 tion Conference, which met in London, says: 

 "The English, with their usual unselfishness, 

 have appropriated the territory between the 

 Kelima-Njaro and the Tana river, forming 

 one of the best routes into the interior. The 

 Tana leads across the Renia to about Lake 

 Nimwascha, or pretty near the 36th degree 

 of east longitude, while the Victoria Nyanza 

 stretches out its eastern point to the 35th de- 

 gree of east longitude. England has therefore 

 secured the route to the Victoria Nyanza, the 

 source of the Nile, and from this point of view 

 quite a new aspect is lent to the zeal with 

 which a great expedition is being organized in 

 London, with the ostensible object of releas- 

 ing Emin Bey (now Pasha) and Cassati. The 

 30,000 to be employed for this purpose will 

 be a little investment in view of the aim to be 

 achieved. On pretense of pursuing a humane 

 purpose, the English would at once show their 

 power in those regions and suddenly take pos- 

 session of the route to the interior lakes." 



Mr. H. M. Stanley, the distinguished ex- 

 plorer, was recalled from America, where he 

 had engaged to make a lecture tour, and, re- 

 turning to England, was given 10,000, as a 

 contribution from the Egyptian treasury, and 

 20,000 from alleged private sources, Mr. Stan- 

 ley left England on the 30th inst. for Africa, to 

 take command of an expedition for the rescue 

 of Emin Pasha. England's jealousy has un- 

 doubtedly been aroused by the encroachments 

 of Germany on the east coast, and her im- 

 periled commerce, as much as the peril of Emin 

 Pasha, is doubtless the motive of an expedition 

 in which the hand of the English Government 

 is apparent. 



Excavations and Discoveries. On the 15th of 

 June, in the presence of the Khedive, Moukh- 

 tar Pasha, and Sir Drummond Wolff, the bod- 



ies of two royal mummies, lately discovered in 

 the tomb of Deir-el-Behri, \7ere unwrapped 

 by M. Maspero, and found to be those of Rame- 

 ses II and Rameses III, kings who belonged to 

 the most brilliant period of the ancient em- 

 pire, and that which succeeds to the expulsion 

 of the Hyksos, who lived 1600 years B.C., and 

 about the time of Moses. 



The excavation of the Sphinx is still in 

 progress. This gigantic animal, according to 

 Maspero, occupies the center of an amphi- 

 theatre of rocks in the form of a bowl, 

 which seems to have been quarried by the 

 hand of man, it having been formerly a 

 united surface, which was dug out, leaving in 

 the center a block out of which to sculpture 

 the figure of the Sphinx. This colossal work, 

 Maspero declares, dates from a time anterior 

 to the first dynasty. 



The discovery of "the House of Pharaoh 

 at Tahpanhes," by Mr. Flinders Petrie, the dis- 

 coverer of the ruins of Naukratis, has excited 

 great interest among the students of history. 

 (See ARCHAEOLOGY.) 



Sir H. Drummond Wolff's Mission. Sir Henry 

 was accredited by the English Government as 

 envoy extraordinary to the Sultan in July, 

 1885, for the purpose of establishing an entente 

 with the Porte in matters pertaining to Egypt. 

 In November of the same year Sir Henry went 

 to Egypt, where he was followed in the be- 

 ginning of this year by Moukhtar Pasha as 

 a commissioner on the part of the Sultan. 

 Several conferences have taken place, but 

 nothing has, as yet, been concluded. It is 

 said that Moukhtar claims that the pacification 

 of the Soudan may be speedily expected as 

 soon as the English withdraw their troops from 

 Egypt. Sir Henry has been recalled to Eng- 

 land, and the Porte has (Dec. 9) sent a note to 

 the British Government, again intimating the 

 desire of the Ottoman Government to discuss 

 the question of the evacuation of Egypt. The 

 year 1886 closed without any definite arrange- 

 ment or solution of the question, which con- 

 tinues to excite much interest in diplomatic 

 circles. 



ENGINEERING. Bridge at Oporto. The two 

 cities of Oporto and Villanova de Gaia to- 

 gether contain 150,000 inhabitants, and, as the 

 commercial centers of a rich agricultural and 

 wine-growing country, are the wealthiest and 

 most active towns of Portugal. They are built 

 upon the opposite banks of the river Douro, and 

 hitherto the means of intercommunication have 

 been inadequate. A suspension - bridge was 

 built about fifty years ago, but it did not meet 

 the demands of traffic, and, moreover, was not 

 considered safe. Recent improvements in 

 rigid bridges of wide span led the Portuguese 

 Government to give out contracts for a bridge 

 that was finished in August, and is in many 

 respects a remarkable structure. The neces- 

 sary extreme length was 1,278 feet, and, as 

 the depth of water and the nature of the 

 bottom in mid-channel precluded the possi- 



