STARTING from the railway station at Cairo, and leaving On on our right, we ere long reached Tagaziz. This modern town is of considerable importance, possessing a population of some fifty thousand polyglot inhabitants, who appear to be doing a thriving trade. Hard by are the remains of Bubastis, the Pi-beseth of the Hebrews once a magnificent city, and the seat of the worship of Hast, the cat-headed goddess of lust. But as in the case of Memphis, so of Bubastis, only a few mounds and scattered ruins remain to attest its former greatness; God has blown alike upon its magnificence and sensuality, for, as the prophet declared, “The young men of wen and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword; and these cities shall go into captivity." (Ezekiel 30:1717The young men of Aven and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity. (Ezekiel 30:17).)
Soon after leaving Tagaziz, the country, which had been hitherto well-watered and prolific, lapsed into a waste of desert sand. Not that this was always so, for in Joseph's days this same land of Goshen was called by Pharaoh the "best of the land" (Gen. 47:66The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. (Genesis 47:6)), but oppression and misrule have done their work, and the network of irrigation which must then have overspread the country has been allowed to silt up. Thus it has come to pass, as God had said, “I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked; and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers; I the Lord have spoken." (Ezekiel 30:1212And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have spoken it. (Ezekiel 30:12).)
The whirling sand, which penetrates everywhere, and lies as a thick deposit, even upon the railway carriage cushions, and fills eyes, and throat, and nostrils with its irritating particles, bears but too eloquent a testimony to the fact that the canals are dry, and the land waste.
The next place of Scriptural interest is Tel-el-Maskhutah, the scene—in 1883—of M. Naville's excavations, which conclusively established the identity of Pithom, or, as it is elsewhere called, Succoth (Ex. 1:2; 12:372Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, (Exodus 1:2)
37And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. (Exodus 12:37)). Here were brought to light the square stone chambers which the Israelites built for Pharaoh, and the bricks for which they were so troubled in gathering straw are still to be seen, with the straw remaining in them; nay, the accomplished lecturer on Egypt, the late Miss Amelia B. Edwards, declared that while the lower layers of brick contained straw, the middle layers contained sedge, and the highest were made without any binding material at all, thus strikingly witnessing to the Bible narrative.
Some thirty miles north of Pithom, on the borders of Lake Menzeleh, is situated 'Loan, now an insignificant fishing village called San, once the magnificent capital of the Hyksos kings, of whom Joseph's Pharaoh, Apapus, was probably the last. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, Zoan continued to be the seat of government, but Rameses IL, the king who "knew not Joseph," rebuilt the city by Israelitish labor, and called it Rameses. Here probably it was that Moses challenged Meneptah (the Pharaoh of the Exodus) to let God's people go, and on his refusal wrought "wonders on the field of Zoan "; and thence, finally, he started with Israel towards Succoth, on their wilderness journey to the Promised Land.
Pursuing our way from Pithom we soon reach the banks of Lake Timsah, and the modern village of Ismailia (pronounced Ismi-lee-a), the greenery of which is a pleasant contrast to the desert sands through which we have just passed. It has been called into existence by the canal, and is an illustration of what these same arid sands are capable of producing the moment that the fertilizing water reaches them.
When Israel dwelt in Goshen, these same sands were doubtless covered with one mass of verdure, and the main artery—the canal—was known as the Sweetwater Canal, along whose banks the line over which we have just passed for some distance lay, existed in their day, but it was reserved to M. de Lesseps to clear out and reopen this ancient source of fertility, and perhaps, under a settled English Government, the day is not far distant when the wilderness shall become a garden again.
Starting down Lake Timsah in a small steamer, we soon found ourselves in the Suez Canal itself, than which nothing can be more wearisome and monotonous. The sandy banks are sufficiently high to exclude all view, if view there be, from the deck of our little vessel, while a cold and biting wind whirled the sand in clouds, and sent us chilled and disconsolate into the crowded cabin below. We were not, therefore, sorry when lights twinkling in the distance—for the night had now set in—announced that we were nearing Port Said (pronounced Si-yid). The town is situated on a long and narrow spit of land, which is washed by the waters of Lake Menzeleh on the south, and by those of the Mediterranean on the north. The foundations of the town consist largely of the refuse dredged from the canal, and its inhabitants seem to be well suited to their environment, for they would appear to have been largely recruited from the refuse of mankind. However, we find on disembarking that we shall have to spend a night and day here, as the Austrian Lloyd steamer does not sail for Jaffa till five o'clock next afternoon. J. F.