_Friday, April 27th_.--Another glorious sunrise. The pilot was on
board at 5 a.m., and the Dhebash with fish, strawberries, and fresh
vegetables. This is a beautiful climate, though there is scarcely any
rain; only one very slight shower has occurred during the last three
years at Suez, but the soil of the desert after the Nile overflow
brings forth tenfold.
The 'Sunbeam' was to start at eight o'clock, as soon as a large vessel
had passed up from Port Said. There are only certain places in the
Canal where vessels can pass one another, so one ship is always
obliged to wait for another. We landed at half-past seven. The sun was
already blazing with a burning fury, and we found it very hot riding
up to the hotel on donkeys. We had an excellent breakfast at the same
comfortable hotel, paid a very moderate bill, and left by the eleven
o'clock train for Cairo. We stopped at Zag-a-zig for an hour for
luncheon in a nice cool dark room, and started again about three
o'clock. The change in the face of the country since we were here
eight years ago is something extraordinary. A vast desert of sand has
been transformed into one large oasis of undulating fields of waving
corn, where there used to be nothing but whirlwinds of sand. All this
has been effected by irrigation.
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