THE GATEWAY TO EGYPT

the Agricultural Bank. The government, which controls that bank, lends money to the farmers at eight per cent, to within half of the value of their farms. To-day, since the peasants all over Egypt can get money at this rate, the Greeks have had to reduce theirs.

The Italians number about forty thousand and the French twenty thousand. There are many Italian shops here in Alexandria, while there are hundreds of Italians doing business in Cairo. They also furnish some of the best mechanics. Many of them are masons and the greater part of the Aswan Dam and similar works were constructed by them.

There are also Germans, Austrians, and Russians, to¬ gether with a few Americans and Belgians. The British community numbers a little over twenty thousand. Among the other foreigners are some Maltese and a few hundred British East Indians.

Sitting here at Alexandria in a modern hotel surrounded by the luxuries of Paris or New York, I find it hard to real¬ ize that I am in one of the very oldest cities of history. Yesterday I started out to look up relics of the past, going by mile after mile of modern buildings, though I was trav¬ elling over the site of the metropolis that flourished here long before Christ was born. From the antiquarian’s point of view, the only object of note still left is Pompey’s Pillar and that is new in comparison with the earliest history of Old Egypt, as it was put up only sixteen hundred years ago, when Alexandria was already one of the great¬ est cities of the world. The monument was supposed to stand over the grave of Pompey, but it was really erected by an Egyptian prefect in honour of the Roman emperor,

Diocletian. It was at one time a landmark for sailors,

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