OVERLAND ROUTE TO INDIA. 247 



daybreak on the IStli we cast anchor in the noble harbour of 

 Alexandria. On landing we hired a carriage and drove first to 

 Porupey's Pillar, which stands on a small hill a short way from 

 the town, and, to say the least of it, " wears well." Fancy a tall 

 red granite column, the base ornamented with English snob 

 tourists' names ; we did not inscribe ours. The road to it is 

 bordered with acacias and Chenopodium trees, and we passed 

 gardens with thousands of dates in fruit and oleanders in flower : 

 then we wheeled about and were off for Cleopatra's Needle, 

 erected on the bastions fronting the sea, at the opposite end of 

 the city. It is an obelisk of no great size, having the hiero- 

 glyphics on the sides toward the sea perfect and sharp, while 

 those facing the sandy desert are worn, and many of them 

 nearly effaced. 



All the long day we were tugged through the canal, and just 

 as the sun went down we reached its junction with the river of 

 Egypt. As the sun set, the full moon rose before us on the broad 

 Avaters of the Nile ; the sky was beautifully clear, the region 

 round the sinking sun at first apricot yellow, and then of the 

 intense orange yellow of the deepest coloured Eseholtzia. This 

 faded upwards through a rosy purple into the grayish blue of 

 the evening sky, all very lovely. 



My eyes have now become as familiar with the date palm as 

 with the hawthorn or the sloe. Moore has quite mistaken its 

 character where he mentions — 



" Groups of lovely date trees bending 

 Languidly their leaf-crowned heads." 1 



For " lovely," read " lordly ;" and the head of the tree does not 

 bend, it is the fruit-stalks that bend ; the trunk is remarkably 

 stiff, erect, and as languid as Nelson's or Pompey's Pillar. 



As soon as the dawn began I came on deck to see the sun 

 rise and to watch the river banks, which though flat were not 

 monotonous, for there was always something to look at, groups 

 of date trees, mud villages, farmers irrigating their land, &c. 



I have said little about the people. There is a great variety 

 of race among them, and an extraordinary number of one-eyed 

 men, it being a common practice with mothers to put out the 

 right eye of their male children after birth, in order to prevent 



1 See "Paradise and the Peri." 



