LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE REV. D. M'PHERSON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Damietta, July 1, 1827.

THE town of Suez is a miserable place of abode, hemmed in between the arid Desert and a boisterous sea. There is not a spring within several miles of it, nor any sort of verdure in its vicinity. The water is carried from El Naba, near the fountains of Moses, seven or eight miles from Suez, and the provisions are brought from Cairo; the Governor has the water he drinks brought from the latter place, a distance of eighty miles, and he calculates the cost at a piastre a glassful.

The water of El Naba, though the best in the neighbourhood, has a saline bitter taste, which it is difficult to distinguish from that of a solution of glauber salts. It affected my stomach the first day, and shortly after produced a ringworm on

DISEASES OF SUEZ.

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my cheek, which occupied half my face; it increased daily in size, till it at length reached the lower eyelid. I thought it high time to check its progress, and this I accomplished, after trying a variety of remedies, by rubbing the surface with diluted muriatic acid thrice a day; the pain of the application was considerable, but the disease was wholly removed in the course of four days.

Suez is the Sierra Leon of Egypt: importunate Turks are appointed to offices, which they seldom live to enjoy long. Every one complains of ill health; the burning sun and the bitter water, in a short time, undermine the strongest constitutions. I believe there was not a respectable inhabitant of Suez who did not apply to me for advice. Diseased liver was very common, but enlargement of the spleen* was much more so. On this side of the Red Sea plague is little known, its ravages

* In all places where remittent, and especially intermittent fevers prevail, I found the spleen invariably affected; and, lately, in Rome, I had an opportunity of seeing the bodies of several patients opened, who had died of the malaria intermittent in the hospital of San Spirito; in every one of these the spleen was enlarged, sometimes occupying half the abdomen.

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INHABITANTS OF SUEZ.

are not to be traced beyond Suez, but on the Eastern shore, pestilence is to be found so high as Mekka.

The ships from India formerly discharged their cargoes at Suez, but Jedda and Coseir are now the great dépôts for Indian commerce, and Suez has consequently declined. There is still, however, some little trade carried on here with India and the Hedjaz, and the most extraordinary diversity of colour and costume I ever witnessed, I noticed here. The independent Bedouin paraded the streets on his Arab mare, enveloped in his bernous, and his long gun slung over his shoulder; the brawny Mugrebbin, with his shrill voice and ferocious aspect, formed a contrast with the slender Indian, with his tawdry attire and his effeminate features; the humbled arrogance of the Wahabee was to be distinguished from the subdued ferocity of the Abyssinian Christian, and the dress of each was as varied as his creed; the complexion of each was peculiar to his clime, but the passions of all were common to human

nature.

The situation of Suez, in a commercial point of

view, is excellent, lying nearly at the extremity of the Arabian Gulf; it is only three days' journey from Cairo, five and a half from Damietta, eight from Hebron, the modern Kalyl, ten days from Jerusalem, two days and a half from the Hamam Pharoon, and five from Sinai,

One of my first objects at Suez was to ascertain if the sea was fordable opposite the town at ebb tide; the consular agent and the Levantine writers of the Governor assured me that it was not; but I attached little importance to their assertions. I therefore desired my servant to find me out any Indian sailor who wished to earn a dollar by crossing the Gulf: at eight in the evening a man made his appearance who offered to make the attempt. I explained to him the nature of the object I wanted to ascertain; I directed him to walk straight across, as far as it was possible to do so, and to hold his hands over his head as he walked along. He was in the water forthwith, he proceeded slowly and steadily, his hands above his head, and in nine minutes he was at the other side of the Red Sea. On his return he told me what I knew to be a fact, that he had walked every step across, the deepest part being about the middle of

the Gulf, when the water was up to his chin. I proceeded now to follow his course ; I gave him another dollar to cross over before me, and as I was nearly eight inches taller than my guide, where his chin was in the water my long beard was quite dry.

The tide was now coming in fast, and by the time we reached the middle of the sea my Indian thought it imprudent to proceed further as I could not boast of being an expert swimmer. Had we remained ten minutes longer, we should inevitably have suffered Pharaoh's fate; for the opposite bank was perceptibly diminishing, and at ten o'clock the sea, which was hardly more than the breadth of the Thames at London Bridge two hours before, was now from two to three miles broad. I returned perfectly convinced that the Red Sea, opposite Suez, is passable at ebb tide.

By a mark which I made on a perpendicular rock on the seaside, about eighty paces from the spot we forded, I found the difference between the ebb and flow to be six feet two inches. The fountains of Moses, above El Naba, are about seven miles from Suez by water, but by land the the distance is double.