ooded village where two hundred or
so people stood on their roofs crying for help. Would you, could you,
believe it that they passed on and left them to drown? None but an
eyewitness could have made me believe such villainy.

All to-day we sailed in such heavenly weather--a sky like nothing but its
most beautiful self. At the bend of the river just now we had a grand
struggle to get round, and got entangled with a big timber boat. My crew
got so vehement that I had to come out with an imperious request to
everyone to bless the Prophet. Then the boat nearly pulled the men into
the stream, and they pulled and hauled and struggled up to their waists
in mud and water, and Omar brandished his pole and shouted 'Islam el
Islam!' which gave a fresh spirit to the poor fellows, and round we came
with a dash and caught the breeze again. Now we have put up for the
night, and shall pass the railway-bridge to-morrow. The railway is all
under water from here up to Tantah--eight miles--and in many places
higher up.

November 14, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_November_ 14, 1863.

Here I am at last in my old quarters at Thayer's house, after a tiresome
negotiation with the Vice-Consul, who had taken possession and invented
the story of women on the ground-floor. I was a week in Briggs' damp
house, and too ill to write. The morning I arrived at Cairo I was seized
with haemorrhage, and had two days of it; however, since then I am
better. I was very foolish to stay a fortnight in Alexandria.

The passage under the railway-bridge at Tantah (which is only opened once
in two days) was most exciting and pretty. Such a scramble and dash of
boats--two or three hundred at least. Old Zedan, the steersman, slid
under the noses of the big boats with my little _Cangia_ and through the
gates before they were well open, and we saw the rush and confusion
behind us at our ease, and headed the whole fleet for a few miles. Then
we stuck, and Zedan raged; but we got off in an hour and again overtook
and passed all. And then we saw the spectacle of devastation--whole
villages gone, submerged and melted, mud to mud, and the people with
their animals encamped on spits of sand or on the dykes in long rows of
ragged makeshift tents, while we sailed over w