uld be required. The track-boats are
odious conveyances, long and narrow, and the present one very dirty, and
swarming with cockroaches. They were towed by three horses, ridden by
three men. In England one would have answered the purpose. The Canal
itself is an extraordinary work, worthy of the country of the Pyramids,
and one of the prodigies which despotism sometimes exhibits when the
iron sceptre is combined with a vigorous intellect. It is ninety feet
wide and forty-eight miles long, and yet was completed in six weeks. But
it took the labour of 250,000 men, who worked, if the story be true,
night and day. Along the canal were seen several large encampments of
troops, rather rough instruments, it is true, for polishing African
savagery into usefulness, but perhaps the only means by which great
things could have been done in so short a period as the reign of
Mohammed Ali. An Italian fellow-passenger, who had resided in Egypt
twenty-five years, gave it as the result of his experience, that without
the strong hand of power, the population would do nothing. Bread and
onions being their food, when those were obtained they had got all that
they asked for. They would leave their fruitful land to barrenness, and
would prefer sleeping under their trees, to the simplest operation of
agriculture in a soil that never requires the plough. Yet they are
singularly tenacious of their money, and often bury it, keeping their
secret to the last. The Italian told them that he was once witness to a
scene exactly in point. He accompanied the tax-gatherer to a miserable
village, where they entered one of the most miserable huts. The
tax-gatherer demanded his due, the Egyptian fell at his feet, protesting
that his family were starving, and that he had not a single coin to buy
bread. The tax-gatherer, finding him impracticable, ordered some of his
followers to give him a certain number of stripes. The peasant writhed
under the stripes, but continued his tale. The beating was renewed on
two days more, when the Italian interfered and implored mercy. But the
officer said that he must continue to flog, as he was certain that the
money would come forth at last. After six days' castigation, the
peasant's patience could hold out no longer. He dug a hole in the floor
of his hut, and exhibited gold and silver to a large amount.

All this may be true; but it would be an injustice to human nature to
suppose that man, in any country, would prefer dirt, p