It is said that the experiment of boring has been tried, and failed,
between Suez and Cairo, but that it succeeded in the great desert;
some other method, perhaps, may be found, if the project of bringing
water from the hills, by means of aqueducts, should be too expensive.
We heard this plan talked of at the bungalow, but I fear that, in the
present state of Egypt, it is very chimerical.
This was now our fourth day upon the desert, and we had not sustained
the smallest inconvenience; the heat, even at noon, being very
bearable, and the sand not in the least degree troublesome. Doubtless,
at a less favourable period of the year, both would prove difficult
to bear. The wind, we were told, frequently raised the sand in clouds;
and though the danger of being buried beneath the tombs thus made, we
had reason to believe, was greatly exaggerated, yet the plague of sand
is certainly an evil to be dreaded, and travellers will do well
to avoid the season in which it prevails. The speed of my donkeys
increasing, rather than diminishing, after we left the well, for they
seemed to know that Suez would terminate their journey, I crossed the
intervening three miles very quickly, and was soon at the walls of the
town.
Distance lends no enchantment to the view of Suez.
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