JOUENEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION TO AFRICA.

Arrival at Alexandria—The Landing—My First Oriental Bath-The City—Prepara-

tions for Departure.

I LEFT Smyrna in the Lloyd steamer, Conte SturmeVj on the

first day of November, 1851. We passed the blue Sporadic

Isles—Cos, and Rhodes, and Karpathos—and crossing the

breadth of the Eastern Mediterranean, favored all the way by

unruffled seas, and skies of perfect azure, made the pharos of

Alexandria on the evening of the 3d. The entrance to the

harbor is a narrow and difficult passage through reefs, and no

vessel dares to attempt it at night, but with the first streak of

dawn we were boarded by an Egyptian pilot, and the rising sun lighted up for us the white walls of the city, the windmills

of the Ras el-Tin, or Cape of Figs, and the low yellow sand-

hills in which I recognized Africa—^for they were prophetic of

the desert behind them.

We entered the old harbor between the island of Pha-

ros and the main land (now connected by a peninsular strip. on which the Frank quarter is built), soon after sunrise