_ CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOY OF THE TRANSIT MANAGER
The village of Serapeum has had an existence of over twenty years; and its pleasant little gardens looked very inviting in the fresh morning air to the members of the cabin party as they took their places on the promenade, which had come to be about as well defined as their seats at the table. The air was soft and agreeable; and after their refreshing sleep the tourists were in excellent condition to enjoy the continued passage through the canal, of which, however, there were only about forty-one miles left, and the commander expected to be at Suez by noon.
Captain Ringgold had not said anything to any person except Scott about the mysterious stranger with a veil over his face; but the ship and her consort had been well guarded over night, and a search for stowaways was made when the morning watch came on duty. Not even an Arab tramp could be found, and the commander was confident the tall Mussulman had not again found a hiding-place on board of either vessel.
"We shall soon have a change of scene," said Captain Ringgold, as he joined the party on the promenade. "We are still in the desert, though the fresh-water canal makes a streak of green along its banks, for it extends to Suez, and even across the bay to the entrance of the canal."
"The prospect is not very exciting just now," added Mr. Woolridge, as the 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; but Brugsch identifies these lakes with the Marah of the Bible, though others do not agree with him. In Exodus xv. 23 we read," and the speaker took a paper from his pocket: "'And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters ... for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.' But the bitter spring which Moses sweetened by casting into it a tree is in the peninsula of Sinai."
"Shall we go there?" asked Mrs. Blossom, beginning to be excited, as she always was when scriptural subjects came up in connection with the journey; and she had studied the Bible more than any other book, and probably more than all others combined.
"At the proper time I shall have something to say about Mount Sinai, and I hope to place you in a position to see it in the distance; but at present we are not prepared to consider the matter. You can now see through the cutting an expanse of water, which is the great basin, as the larger lake is called.
"As stated before, the Red Sea formerly extended to Lake Timsah, over forty miles farther than now, and the lakes before us were then a part of the sea. The deepest water was twenty-four to forty feet below the Mediterranean, with a heavy crust of salt on the bottom, though the smaller basin required a great deal of dredging. In the spring of 1869 the Prince and Princess of Wales were present in this locality, and took part 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 I spoke were not 'in it,'" continued the captain. "These Wales did not spout, though they probably said something; but they let in the water instead of blowing it out, as respectable whales do at sea. The waters of the two seas came together, and notwithstanding the joyousness of the occasion, the meeting was not altogether amiable and pleasant at first. Each representative of the different bodies seemed to pitch into the other, and the onslaught created a great commotion for a time. If they were ever united before in the distant past, they appeared to have forgotten all about it.
"The war was short and decisive, and the waters soon settled down into a peaceful condition, as you will find them to-day. They have apparently shaken hands, and accepted the task of promoting the commerce of the world. But here we come to the great basin. The lake is about six miles wide. Here is the lighthouse, and there is another at the other end of it, each of them sixty-five feet high."
The shores of the lake are flat and sandy, and the water is of a bluish green hue. There is a well-defined channel through it. As there is no longer any danger of washing the banks of the canal, steamers increase their speed, and the Guardian-Mother made the next twenty miles in less than 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 seen the Geneffeh range of hills, which were a relief in the landscape from the desert. In them are rich quarries of marble and limestone which are profitably worked.
The passage through the canal had become monotonous to the travellers after they had passed through the lakes, for it was a desert on both sides. Shortly after, the water-way was cut through sandstone, and after that the soil was clay, or a mixture of it with lime; but the last part of the course was through depths of sand again. The tide on the Red Sea rises from five to seven feet, and its flow extends about four miles up the canal.
"Looking ahead, you can see an expanse of water, which means that we are coming to the end of our canal travel," said the commander. "I suppose no one will be sorry for it; for we have had all our social arrangements as usual, and there has been something to see and much to learn all the way."
"It has not been at all like my canal travel at home," added Uncle Moses, who was the oldest person on board of the ship by one month, by which time Dr. Hawkes was his junior, and they were only fifty-four. "I went from Syracuse to Oswego by a canal boat when I was a young man. The trip was in the night, and I slept on a swinging shelf, held up by ropes; and we were bumping much of the time in the locks so that I did not 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 great arms of the Red Sea."
"It appears to be well armed," said Uncle Moses, who could be guilty of a pun on extreme provocation.
"Like yourself, it is provided with two arms, but it does not shoot with them," replied the captain. "On our left are the ruins of Arsinoe, which was an ancient port, once called Crocodilopolis; and, by the way, Lake Timsah was once Crocodile Lake, and doubtless the saurians formerly sported 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 by Ptolemy II. The name is that of several females distinguished in one way or another in the ancient world, and the word is usually written with a diaeresis over the final
e, so that it is pronounced as though it were written Arsinoey. The city thrived for a time, and was the emporium of eastern Egypt; but the perils of the navigation in the north of the Red Sea 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 to the aged king of Thrace. There is a bloody story connected with her life, which I will not repeat; but in the end she fled to the protection of 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 that continent before as you are at this moment," continued the commander, as the 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 so innocent as I began to make it appear. But you have Asia on one side and Europe on the other."
"Well, we had that on the Bosporus, when we made that trip to the Black Sea in the Maud," added the lady, who seemed to be pleased because she had caught the captain in a blunder.
"Then you have been in all the grand divisions of the earth except South America, and I have no doubt you will go there before we come to the finish of this voyage. Here is the station; and you observe that there is 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 and donkey-boys abound here as everywhere in Egypt, and boats can be obtained to ferry you over to the town. But as we shall remain here a day or two, I think we had better go into the basin. We can then go where we please in the Maud."
It was lunch time when the two vessels had been secured, and the party adjourned to the cabin. As soon as the meal was disposed of they returned to the upper deck, and seated themselves in the arm-chairs, for there was much to be seen. Port Tewfik is the proper name of the place at the station, but most of the people are Frenchmen, and they all call it Terreplein.
"At this station the office of the canal company, which you can see from the deck, is located. It has a garden in front of it, on an avenue adorned with lebbec trees. You see that tall tower with balls and flags on it; and it is from this point that all the movements of vessels in the canal are controlled. But I think we had better land, and see it for ourselves."
The company went on shore, and proceeded to promenade the environs. One of the first things that attracted their attention was a colossal bronze bust of Lieutenant Waghorn, who had been presented to them by Captain Ringgold in one of his talks. It was erected to his memory by the canal company, and is a graceful tribute of the French to the originator of the overland route. The inscription was in French, and Louis translated it 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 open boat at Suez, an incident that actually occurred. It is said that this gentleman, after spending the best years of his life in his efforts to establish a quicker route between England and her vast colonies, died in poverty in London in 1850; but I hope it is not true," the commander explained. "We will now apply for admission to the office of the manager."
The permission was obtained, and the party ascended to the upper room of the building. Monsieur Chartrey, the superintendent of the transit department of the canal, was very polite to them, and explained everything to them in English. On a low table which occupied all one side of the apartment was what looked like a metal trough about fifteen feet long. A model of this apparatus was exhibited in England, and there it was called "the toy," a name which is still retained.
On a shelf above the table are about fifty models of ships, each bearing the flag of some nation. The toy is a model of the canal, with its sidings, stations, and the lakes. When a ship enters the canal at either end, a little ship is placed in the relative position it occupies; and when one sails out of it, its representative in the trough is removed. All the stations are connected with this office by telegraph, just as the railroads are controlled in modern times; and when a vessel passes from one section, or block, it is reported to the manager. A man is always watching; and as news comes in, he makes the proper changes in the model ships. Where a steamer is to tie up for the night is ordered from this office.
Monsieur Chartrey was very heartily thanked for his courtesy and kindness, and the party left to look at the docks, quays, and basins of Terreplein; but they were precisely the same as they had seen in various ports of Europe, especially at Havre. The commander had ordered the Maud to be in readiness for a trip, and it was decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at Suez.
The first question the captain put on his return to the ship was as to whether anything had been seen of the mysterious Arab stranger; for the officers 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 her landing-place, provided with a pilot, and steamed by the channel over to the city of the desert, as it has been called. _