Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/19

Rh ; new implements of engineering had to be created for the unaccustomed task; even to the end a large part of the excavations had to be made by the fellaheen taking up the sand or the slime in baskets, and carrying it away on the top of their heads! But at Panama a railroad is already built across the mountains, which can transport men and materials to any point. The old man expressed himself as entirely satisfied with the progress of the work, and spoke with absolute assurance of its complete success; he was going out to America the next year to see how far it was advanced, although he was nearly eighty years of age, and had not a doubt that he should live to see the waters of the two oceans flowing together. With such a man it seems indeed as if all ordinary rules were reversed; as if the obstacles of time and nature, which daunt and defeat less ardent spirits, were made to bend to his unconquerable will.

Cairo has many social attractions in the resident European families, and in strangers that come here for the Winter. The American colony is not large, but it is very pleasant. There are no more charming interiors anywhere than in the hospitable homes of General Stone and Judge Batcheller. Dr. Grant, the Scotch physician, is married to an American lady, who is well known for her kindness to strangers and her charities to the poor; she is now greatly interested in the establishment of a hospital, like that at Beirut, under the charge of those Protestant Sisters of Charity, the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth. The American missionaries, in their new building on the Ezbekieh Square, which includes their chapel and their schools, are working quietly but faithfully to diffuse those elements of knowledge and of Christian faith which are the germ of true civilization. In all these families an American is sure to find a hospitable welcome.