CHAPTER IX.

ALEXANDRIA—RAMLEH.

ALEXANDRIA once possessed a great reputation for salubrity, and was much recommended by the ancient physicians for diseases of the chest. But the modern city is no favourite with invalids, and tourists, obliged to use it as a port of entry, hurry on to Cairo because they can find nothing of sightseeing to detain them. During the early months of the year Alexandria is subject to rain, gales, and cold, but in April the weather is often pleasanter than in Cairo, and it is at this time that invalids for whom Europe is not yet warm enough are recommended to stay, not in Alexandria itself, but in the suburb of Ramleh near by. They will find refreshing sea-breezes, instead of the liability to khamseen wind in Cairo, a temperature which is not too high, and a degree of humidity which is not excessive. The days are bright and sunny, and the nights not too cold. In the town of Alexandria there are two first-class hotels, several

smaller ones, three or four "pensions," pensions," and a dozen lodging-houses, two clubs, three theatres, and streets of European shops. Very little trace of the bombardment and fire of 1882 remains, and since £4,000,000 of indemnity were paid by the Egyptian Government, building has been stimulated to such an extent that there are many new houses and shops which cannot find a tenant.

Among medical men there is a well-known Scotchman, who with his assistants has for three decades administered to the wants of the British colony, and he has as colleagues a dozen Europeans of the first rank, besides an American dentist and two oculists. There are three druggists commanding confidence, three trained English nurses for private cases at their own homes, and three excellent European hospitals where private patients are received.

The water-supply of the town is excellent, and is in the hands of an English company, which has a monopoly for ever, and is represented on the spot by an energetic and highly intelligent English civil engineer. The water is obtained from the Mahmoudieh canal, which branches off the Nile at Atfeh; but if, during low Nile, there is any danger of the river at Atfeh becoming brackish, the supply is taken from higher up the Nile near Cairo. The banks of the canal are inspected by watchmen, to

prevent natives from throwing carcasses or emptying drains into it, and they also flush the canal every ten days with 500,000 tons of Nile water.

At high Nile the water is so muddy that it is necessary to mix with it alum and iron before it is pumped into the filter-beds. Also if chemical analysis shows an abnormal percentage of organic matter, permanganate of soda is mixed with the water before it reaches the filter-beds. There are three filter-beds, each 2400 yards square, and covered with wood. The beds are 2 ft. 6 in. deep, and consist of sand, which is brought from the sea-shore near Damietta, and of four different sizes of gravel, laid on bricks, and so placed as to make a ready communication between the lower layers and the pumps for cleansing purposes. The sand is well washed in water, and the beds cleaned every nine days. From the filter-beds the water is pumped into a reservoir, and thence into Alexandria, at the rate of 26,000 cubic metres a day.

Though the water-supply is so well cared for, the drainage of Alexandria cannot be commended. Since 1871 the streets of the town have been paved, like Naples, with slabs of lava from Catania, and the drains, originally laid down by the Paving Commission for storm-water, have been used as overflows for the cesspools under the houses. The culverts run out to the sea-shore, but some are

built with an insufficient fall, and others ventilate untrapped into the streets, accounting for many of the unpleasant odours of the town. The cesspools not running into these culverts are emptied by carts on the sea-shore near the town.

RAMLEH.

Ramleh has a station of its own (Sidi Gabir) upon the line from Cairo to Alexandria, but if carriages are required to meet the traveller there they must be previously ordered from Alexandria. With the exception of a few private carriages, life at Ramleh is carried on on donkey-back. During the daytime trains run every hour or half-hour from Alexandria to the seven stations, which are only about half a mile apart. Each house stands proudly in its own grounds, and varies in character from a limestone shanty to a pretentious twostoried châlet. The prevailing wind blows refreshingly from the sea; there are miles of desert to explore on the land side, pretty gardens to the straggling houses, and, besides representatives of Greece and many other nations, a colony of English officials and merchants who are famous for their hospitality and their lawn-tennis parties. Ramleh now has a scattered population of about four thousand, but has only been inhabited for the

last thirty years; and crouching next to the gardenwalls of merchant princes are still to be seen patched Bedouin tents, whose mysterious inmates are a relic of the Arabs who levied blackmail on the first English settlers, and professed to keep the rest of their tribesmen at a distance.

For hotels, there are thirty-two bedrooms at San Stefano, a highly commended Beau Sejour, and two smaller hotels, besides an English private boardinghouse. San Stefano also embraces clubrooms, excellent swimming-baths for both sexes, electriclighting, a European string-band, weekly afternoon dances for children, evening parties for adults, etc. The height of the season is from June 15 to October 15, but the hotel is open earlier in the year.

Some Greek doctors are resident in Ramleh, and there is now a chemist; but most residents prefer to get their medical help direct from Alexandria. There is a Greek church and an Italian Catholic; while in Alexandria there are Church of England, Church of Scotland, German and French Protestant, Roman Catholic, and many other places of worship.

The conservancy arrangements are of too primitive a character. Many English houses are provided with earth-closets; the rest have cesspools draining away into the porous sand. Up till now