MY EARLY TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES IN AMERICA AND ASIA MY EARLY TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES IN AMERICA AND ASIA BY HENRY M. STANLEY, D.C.L. AUTHOR OF "IN DARKEST AFRICA," ETC., ETC. Ml< BY r i u NOV 1 7 1989 1 *- --~~ - DATE . wv- -~---- VOLUME II. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Copyright, 1895, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS G- THE CAXTON PRESS NEW YORK CONTENTS THE SUEZ CANAL. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Tongue of the Egyptian Sea The Commerce of the Ancient Egyptians The Ancient Canals The Circumnavigators of Africa Napoleon Bonaparte's Ideas of a Direct Ship Canal The Estimates of Lepere The Greatest Idea of the Nineteenth Century i CHAPTER II. The Egyptian Napoleon Mehemet Ali and the Ship Canal Linant Bey's Project The Constructor of the Canal Ap- pears The Deed of Concession The International Com- mission and their Studies of the Route Their Report and Conclusions The Formation of the Suez Canal Company British Opposition The Auxiliary Canal The Construction of the Maritime Canal The Filling of Lake Timsah Prep- arations for the Ceremony of Opening the Canal . 13 CHAPTER III. The Maritime Capital of the Suez Isthmus Its Workshops and Concrete Block Manufactory The Harbour, Quays and Piers The Naval and Mercantile Fleets Arrival of Roy- alties The Ceremony of Blessing the Canal The Illu- minations . 40 CHAPTER IV. The Greatest Drama in Egyptian History The Empi ess' s Yacht Starts List of Vessels in the Procession The Canal, Scenes on the Banks The Land and its Associations Ar- rival at Lake Timsah . 49 vi Contents CHAPTER V. PAGE Ismailia A Glimpse of Goshen and the Wilderness of Shur The Viceroy's Hospitality A Grumbling Briton A British Shipowner and his Prejudices The Bedawi Manoeuvres be- fore the Empress What the Arabs think of Eugenie . 62 UP THE NILE. CHAPTER VI. A Modem Guide for Travel on the great River, and grand fluvial Contrasts From Cairo onward The Halting Points, and Shore Scenery The Guests of the Khedive Sight-see- ing Whom they met and how they were amused . 74 CHAPTER VII. Denderah, or Tentyra to Thebes The Ruins of Thebes The Splendours of Karnak 99 CHAPTER VIII. From Thebes to Philse A Gem Among Temples The Temple of Edfu The Town and Quarries of Assuan The Ruins ofPhilse Return to Cairo 117 JERUSALEM. CHAPTER IX. The Palestine Exploration Fund Old Jaffa Fools and Fanat- ics The Plain of Philistia The Lepers of Ramleh First View of Jerusalem The Modern City Its Associa- tions The Holy Sepulchre Fanatics at the Tomb The Grandeur of the Temple The Sieges of Jerusalem . 127 Contents CHAPTER X. PAGE Jealousies Excited by the Explorations below Jerusalem The Discoveries Underground Ophel A Remarkable Under- ground Passage The Shaft near the Golden Gate The Foundations of the Temple of Solomon Beautiful Corner Stones The Tyropean Valley Going down to Explore The Great Sea Summary 158 TO THE CASPIAN SEA. CHAPTER XI. Constantinople to Sinope Samsun Kerasunde Trebizond, its History and Trade Gifford Palgrave The Necessity of studying Geography Batum What an Error in Spelling cost the Russians Poti The River of the Ancient Argo- nauts A Seed-bed of Ague Fifty Nationalities The Cas- trati of the Caucasus The Fate of a Spy Mark Tapley's Eden Kutais and its Governor Easter-Day and its Fes- tivities Soldiers as Navvies Arrival at Tiflis . 183 CHAPTER XII. Tiflis Its Boulevards, Squares, Bazaars, Opera House, Oriental and Occidental Quarters What the Russians have been doing in the Caucasus 214 CHAPTER XIII. Tiflis to Bak Post Travel Modern Troglodytes The Steppe How Brigands are Treated Elizavethpol Chemakha Malaghan A Lesson in Geology The Caspian Sea . 223 CHAPTER XIV. A Convict bound to Siberia The English Club House The Governor of Baku General Stoletoff His Views on India and the English 236 viii Contents CHAPTER XV. 1 PAGE Baku The Paris of the Caspian The Naphtha Fires A Strange Sight Departure from Baku Along the Russian, the Persian, and Turkestan Coasts, Central Asia The An- cient Oxus 243 THROUGH PERSIA. CHAPTER XVI. In Persia Scenes in Resht A Tour through the Streets with a Guard of Honour Gorgeous Persian Tablecloths Manners and Customs Struggling through a Trench In the Forest A Question of Bakshish We Start for Teheran Through a Swamp Jungle Chapparing in Persia On Higher Ground Scenes of Beauty Causes of Vapours and heavy Dews On the Tableland of Persia 265 CHAPTER XVII. The Ancient Royal City of Kasvin What the Persian Table- land is like Villages and Canaut The Haunts of the " "Old'Man of the Mountains The Elburz Range Terri- ble Heat A Strange Hotel Proprietor Arrival at Teheran Anecdotes about the Shah The Shah's Palaces His Thrones and Jewels 279 CHAPTER XVIII. The Bazaar of Teheran Persian Dogs The Royal Falconers Rivalry between the Russian and British Embassies The Negaristan Palace The Royal Menagerie Fath Ali Shah Kasr-1-Kajar CHAPTER XIX. The Indo-European Telegraph Hospitality of the Officials The Stations between Teheran and Isfahan Day and Night " Travel The Salt Desert Kum " Prussia and France Fasangun Sin-Sin Terrible Heat Kashan Shrubless Plains The Approach to Isfahan 320 Contents CHAPTER XX. PAGE Isfahan The City of Euphemisms Its Gardens, Groves, and Golden River The Sun darkened by Locusts The Palaces, Royal Colleges, and Meidans The Palace of the Forty Pillars View of the City from the "Sublime Gate "The Eighth Paradise The Thousand Valleys Rustam's Throne Hill of the Fire Worshippers The Rocking Minarets The Road to America The Bazaars of Isfahan Julfa 335 CHAPTER XXL Farewell to Isfahan The Bust of Hercules The Grotesque Town of Yezdekhast The Ruins of Pasargadae The Tomb of Cryus . 361 CHAPTER XXII. The Ruins of Istakhr the Fortress Persepolis and its Palaces Plain of Exploration Underground The Mervdasht . .371 CHAPTER XXIII. Shiraz Travellers' Stories The Famous Ruk-nabad The Gardens of the Southern Capital The Pleasures of the Shirazi Quotations from Saadi, Hafiz and Jami The Sports of the Shirazi Saadi's Tomb and Epitaph The Grave of Hafiz The Tomb of Bathsheba Diary from Shiraz to Bushire Arrival at Bushire The Real Persia . 392 Index 415 THE SUEZ CANAL CHAPTER I. The Tongue of the Egyptian Sea The Commerce of the Ancient Egyptians The Ancient Canals The Circumnavigators of Africa Napoleon Bonaparte's Ideas of a Direct Ship Canal The Estimates of Lepere The Greatest Idea of the Nineteenth Cen- tury. ISMAILIA, ISTHMUS OF SUEZ, November i8M, 1869. THE sandy Isthmus of Suez was considered by the Kings of Ancient Egypt as a good defence against the Assyrians and Persians. The two seas which bound it north and south were almost connected by a chain of salt lakes which occupied every depression on the isthmus. There is evidence enough to prove that in pre- historic times the Red Sea and the Mediterranean once commingled their waters, and that the sand which formed the isthmus had been gradually heaped up by action of strong wind and tides. For in the time of Isaiah this process was taking place. The Bitter Lakes, now so called, were then but the The Suez Canal extreme reach of the Red Sea, and when Isaiah fulminates against Egypt he threatens to cut off the tongue of the Egyptian sea. This reach of sea, according to the laws of nature, was even then being isolated. A bar was forming at the southern ex- tremity of the Bitter Lakes, which we find this day to have expanded into the width of eighteen miles of finest sand, and the same process of bar-making was found in operation by the originators of the Canal at about a mile to the southward of Suez. A little eastward of the Bitter Lakes was the famous Bog, in which it was believed several hostile armies had been engulfed. Then came the Bitter Lakes, 23 miles long; Lake Timsah, 2 miles long; the Ballah Lakes, 3 miles; and the extensive lagoon of Menzaleh, 28 miles. Between these lakes ran a sinuous stream towards the Pelusiac marshes, where there were salt pits for the manufacture of salt. To any powerful commercial nation existing about the year 1000 B.C., the plan of a canal through the isthmus would no doubt have been deemed more feasible than in the beginning of the nineteenth century. It only required a trench between these lacustrine links, and the canal was done. But in^tie year 1000 B.C. the old Egyptians regarded with horror those who navigated the deep and dwelt in ships. Nay, those unfortunate sailors, whose misfortune it was to be wrecked on the coast of Egypt, were imme- diately offered up as sacrifices to the god Busiris. The Egyptians possessed no forests wherewith to The Commerce of the Ancient Egyptians 3 build seaworthy vessels. Their Nile galleys were built expressly for river trade between the Delta and the intermediate ports on the Nile. But they regarded the ocean with horror, notwithstanding that they saw the merchant-ships of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, and Greece in their ports. The Phoenicians and Greeks swept the seas from the Palestine coast as far as the Pillars of Hercules, from Pelusium to Salamis and the Peloponnesus. Solomon despatched his ships down the Red Sea from Eziongeber to Ophir and Ind, for gold, balsam, and spices. But it was impossible that people naturally brave and great in arts as the Egyptians should long stand aloof from the benefits to be derived from commerce and ocean navigation, and accordingly we find them under Psammeticus rivalling the Greeks and Phoe- nicians in maritime pursuits.