A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

20 ALEXANDRIA.
ing by a drive to Pompey's Pillar. Nothing that
we had yet seen, either externally or internally, in
point of architecture, had given us the idea of an
Egyptian city ;
the great square, in which we are
lodged, with its numerous Consular residences and
its spacious hotels, looks thoroughly European;
and the Frank quarter in which it stands is com-
posed of mean-looking wretched streets, where
every second house bears the name and calling of
some French, Italian, or Greek tradesman. But
in going to Pompey's pillar, we passed by the
Arab quarter, occupied solely by the Fellah popu-
lation of Alexandria; and there most certainly a
novel sight met our eyes, and we were introduced
to a personal acquaintance with the misery and
debasement to which the wretched population of
Egypt is reduced by the oppressions of an ar-
bitrary government and a despotic ruler. Yet in
the midst of a squalor and poverty unequalled
perhaps in any part of the world, these poor
Fellahs, lodged in mud hovels sometimes too low
to admit of their standing upright in them, scan-
tily fed with the worst and coarsest food, covered
over only with a blue cotton shirt, and their
children completely naked, contrive to preserve a
semblance of cleanliness about their habitations
which is not to be found in the villages of Ireland