Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/57

Rh Egypt at less cost and with greater benefit to the country.

On the morning of the 26th of June the Pasha's carriages conveyed us to the Mahmudiyeh Canal, where a flat-bottomed steamer was waiting for us. This canal had been made twenty years before by 300,000 poor villagers, and it is calculated that its construction cost the lives of 20,000 men. Then began a tedious journey up its waters, the shallowness of which made our progress so slow that at the first station a regiment 600 strong was ordered to tow the steamer up the muddy and sluggish stream. Our rate of progress had been about six miles an hour. The troops, who hitherto had towed the steamer from the bank, were now ordered to throw off their clothing and accoutrements; they then dashed into the water, and with long ropes dragged it up the stream. Their officers seemed to look upon them as mere animals, and treated them as such. Some fell out and were seen to fall on their knees in prayer, while the rest were urged on with those wild cries peculiar to Eastern nations. Sir Henry remarks on this: — 'The same devotions were constantly going on on board, and I never was so much struck with an exhibition of religious feeling as that which seemed to have such complete possession over these poor Muhammadans.'

Cairo was reached on the evening of the 28th of June, the voyage having occupied thirty-eight hours instead of thirty. The next day the usual visit of