Asiatic Breezes; Or, Students on The Wing

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE TOY OF THE TRANSIT MANAGER

  The village of Serapeum has had an existence of over twenty years; andits pleasant little gardens looked very inviting in the fresh morningair to the members of the cabin party as they took their places on thepromenade, which had come to be about as well defined as their seats atthe table. The air was soft and agreeable; and after their refreshingsleep the tourists were in excellent condition to enjoy the continuedpassage through the canal, of which, however, there were only aboutforty-one miles left, and the commander expected to be at Suez by noon.

  Captain Ringgold had not said anything to any person except Scott aboutthe mysterious stranger with a veil over his face; but the ship and herconsort had been well guarded over night, and a search for stowaways wasmade when the morning watch came on duty. Not even an Arab tramp couldbe found, and the commander was confident the tall Mussulman had notagain found a hiding-place on board of either vessel.

  "We shall soon have a change of scene," said Captain Ringgold, as hejoined the party on the promenade. "We are still in the desert, thoughthe fresh-water canal makes a streak of green along its banks, for itextends to Suez, and even across the bay to the entrance of the canal."

  "The prospect is not very exciting just now," added Mr. Woolridge, asthe screw began to turn, and the ship moved away from her moorings.

  "We shall come to the larger of the Bitter Lakes in less than an hour,"replied the captain. "There is nothing very exciting about them; butBrugsch identifies these lakes with the Marah of the Bible, thoughothers do not agree with him. In Exodus xv. 23 we read," and the speakertook a paper from his pocket: "'And when they came to Marah, they couldnot drink of the waters ... for they were bitter: therefore the name ofit was called Marah.' But the bitter spring which Moses sweetened bycasting into it a tree is in the peninsula of Sinai."

  "Shall we go there?" asked Mrs. Blossom, beginning to be excited, as shealways was when scriptural subjects came up in connection with thejourney; and she had studied the Bible more than any other book, andprobably more than all others combined.

  "At the proper time I shall have something to say about Mount Sinai, andI hope to place you in a position to see it in the distance; but atpresent we are not prepared to consider the matter. You can now seethrough the cutting an expanse of water, which is the great basin, asthe larger lake is called.

  "As stated before, the Red Sea formerly extended to Lake Timsah, overforty miles farther than now, and the lakes before us were then a partof the sea. The deepest water was twenty-four to forty feet below theMediterranean, with a heavy crust of salt on the bottom, though thesmaller basin required a great deal of dredging. In the spring of 1869the Prince and Princess of Wales were present in this locality, and tookpart in the ceremonial of 'letting in the waters.'"

  "'Wails for the multitude of Egypt,'" added Uncle Moses.

  "Ezekiel, chapter and verse forgotten," replied the commander.

  "Thirty-two, eighteen," said the bulky lawyer.

  "Are there any whales in the lake?" asked Felix.

  "You can fish for them, my lad; but the particular Waleses of whom Ispoke were not 'in it,'" continued the captain. "These Wales did notspout, though they probably said something; but they let in the waterinstead of blowing it out, as respectable whales do at sea. The watersof the two seas came together, and notwithstanding the joyousness of theoccasion, the meeting was not altogether amiable and pleasant at first.Each representative of the different bodies seemed to pitch into theother, and the onslaught created a great commotion for a time. If theywere ever united before in the distant past, they appeared to haveforgotten all about it.

  "The war was short and decisive, and the waters soon settled down into apeaceful condition, as you will find them to-day. They have apparentlyshaken hands, and accepted the task of promoting the commerce of theworld. But here we come to the great basin. The lake is about six mileswide. Here is the lighthouse, and there is another at the other end ofit, each of them sixty-five feet high."

  The shores of the lake are flat and sandy, and the water is of a bluishgreen hue. There is a well-defined channel through it. As there is nolonger any danger of washing the banks of the canal, steamers increasetheir speed, and the Guardian-Mother made the next twenty miles in lessthan two hours. As the captain had promised, it was a change of scene,and it was very agreeable to the party. In the distance could be seenthe Geneffeh range of hills, which were a relief in the landscape fromthe desert. In them are rich quarries of marble and limestone which areprofitably worked.

  The passage through the canal had become monotonous to the travellersafter they had passed through the lakes, for it was a desert on bothsides. Shortly after, the water-way was cut through sandstone, and afterthat the soil was clay, or a mixture of it with lime; but the last partof the course was through depths of sand again. The tide on the Red Searises from five to seven feet, and its flow extends about four miles upthe canal.

  "Looking ahead, you can see an expanse of water, which means that we arecoming to the end of our canal travel," said the commander. "I supposeno one will be sorry for it; for we have had all our socialarrangements as usual, and there has been something to see and much tolearn all the way."

  "It has not been at all like my canal travel at home," added UncleMoses, who was the oldest person on board of the ship by one month, bywhich time Dr. Hawkes was his junior, and they were only fifty-four. "Iwent from Syracuse to Oswego by a canal boat when I was a young man. Thetrip was in the night, and I slept on a swinging shelf, held up byropes; and we were bumping much of the time in the locks so that I didnot sleep so well as I did last night. But what water have we ahead,Captain?"

  "It is an arm of the Gulf of Suez, which is itself one of the two greatarms of the Red Sea."

  "It appears to be well armed," said Uncle Moses, who could be guilty ofa pun on extreme provocation.

  "Like yourself, it is provided with two arms, but it does not shoot withthem," replied the captain. "On our left are the ruins of Arsinoe, whichwas an ancient port, once called Crocodilopolis; and, by the way, LakeTimsah was once Crocodile Lake, and doubtless the saurians formerlysported in its waters."

  "About Arsinoe?" suggested the professor.

  "Probably you know more about it than I do, Professor."

  "I know little except that it was a commercial city of Egypt, built byPtolemy II. The name is that of several females distinguished in one wayor another in the ancient world, and the word is usually written with adiaeresis over the final _e_, so that it is pronounced as though it werewritten Arsinoey. The city thrived for a time, and was the emporium ofeastern Egypt; but the perils of the navigation in the north of the RedSea diverted the trade into other channels, and the place went to decay.It was named by Ptolemy after his sister, who was married at sixteen tothe aged king of Thrace. There is a bloody story connected with herlife, which I will not repeat; but in the end she fled to the protectionof her brother in Egypt, and after the fashion of that age and country,he made her his wife."

  "You have not been in Asia any of you yet, or even as near thatcontinent before as you are at this moment," continued the commander, asthe ship passed out of the canal into the gulf.

  "I thought we had been in Asia," interposed Mrs. Belgrave.

  "Certainly we have," added half a dozen others.

  "Isn't Scutari in Asia, Captain?" asked the lady.

  "To be sure it is, and we all went over there from Constantinople,"replied the commander. "I had forgotten that, and you are not soinnocent as I began to make it appear. But you have Asia on one side andEurope on the other."

  "Well, we had that on the Bosporus, when we made that trip to the BlackSea in the Maud," added the lady, who seemed to be pleased because shehad caught the captain in a blunder.

  "Then you have been in all the grand divisions of the earth except SouthAmerica, and I have no doubt you will go there before we come to thefinish of this voyage. Here is the station; and you observe
that thereis a bridge across the canal by which the traveller can proceed to Suez,which you can see upon the point on the other side. The donkeys anddonkey-boys abound here as everywhere in Egypt, and boats can beobtained to ferry you over to the town. But as we shall remain here aday or two, I think we had better go into the basin. We can then gowhere we please in the Maud."

  It was lunch time when the two vessels had been secured, and the partyadjourned to the cabin. As soon as the meal was disposed of theyreturned to the upper deck, and seated themselves in the arm-chairs, forthere was much to be seen. Port Tewfik is the proper name of the placeat the station, but most of the people are Frenchmen, and they all callit Terreplein.

  "At this station the office of the canal company, which you can see fromthe deck, is located. It has a garden in front of it, on an avenueadorned with lebbec trees. You see that tall tower with balls and flagson it; and it is from this point that all the movements of vessels inthe canal are controlled. But I think we had better land, and see it forourselves."

  The company went on shore, and proceeded to promenade the environs. Oneof the first things that attracted their attention was a colossal bronzebust of Lieutenant Waghorn, who had been presented to them by CaptainRinggold in one of his talks. It was erected to his memory by the canalcompany, and is a graceful tribute of the French to the originator ofthe overland route. The inscription was in French, and Louis translatedit for the benefit of the observers.

  "But I cannot translate the bass-relief on the bronze," he added.

  "That represents Lieutenant Waghorn embarking with the mails in an openboat at Suez, an incident that actually occurred. It is said that thisgentleman, after spending the best years of his life in his efforts toestablish a quicker route between England and her vast colonies, died inpoverty in London in 1850; but I hope it is not true," the commanderexplained. "We will now apply for admission to the office of themanager."

  The permission was obtained, and the party ascended to the upper room ofthe building. Monsieur Chartrey, the superintendent of the transitdepartment of the canal, was very polite to them, and explainedeverything to them in English. On a low table which occupied all oneside of the apartment was what looked like a metal trough about fifteenfeet long. A model of this apparatus was exhibited in England, and thereit was called "the toy," a name which is still retained.

  On a shelf above the table are about fifty models of ships, each bearingthe flag of some nation. The toy is a model of the canal, with itssidings, stations, and the lakes. When a ship enters the canal ateither end, a little ship is placed in the relative position itoccupies; and when one sails out of it, its representative in the troughis removed. All the stations are connected with this office bytelegraph, just as the railroads are controlled in modern times; andwhen a vessel passes from one section, or block, it is reported to themanager. A man is always watching; and as news comes in, he makes theproper changes in the model ships. Where a steamer is to tie up for thenight is ordered from this office.

  Monsieur Chartrey was very heartily thanked for his courtesy andkindness, and the party left to look at the docks, quays, and basins ofTerreplein; but they were precisely the same as they had seen in variousports of Europe, especially at Havre. The commander had ordered the Maudto be in readiness for a trip, and it was decided to spend the rest ofthe afternoon at Suez.

  The first question the captain put on his return to the ship was as towhether anything had been seen of the mysterious Arab stranger; for theofficers had been cautioned not to admit any person on board. Mr.Gaskette had remained on board of the Maud, and made the same report.With the four seamen who had attended the company up the Nile on board,and with the second officer and Don, the little steamer left herlanding-place, provided with a pilot, and steamed by the channel over tothe city of the desert, as it has been called.