THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. 390.] JANUARY 1, 1824. [6 of Vol. 56. SIR RICHARD STEELE's COTTAGE AT HAVERSTOCK HILL. THIS small cottage, emblematical of the fortunes of a man of genius, stands midway between Camden-town and Hampstead. Till within these two years, it remained in its original state, but it is now converted into two small ornamented cottages, as sleepingboxes for citizens. Previously to Steele's time, it had also served as a retreat for Sir Charles Sedley. Opposite to it, the famous Mother or Moll King built three substantial houses; and in a small villa behind them resided her favourite pupil, Nancy Dawson. In Steele's days Hampstead itself was the periodical resort of the wits; and a tavern, no longer in existence, and lately the workhouse, is often mentioned in the writings of the period. An apartinent in the cottage was till lately called the Philosopher's Room, probably the same in which Steele used to write. In Hogarth's "March to Finchley," this cottage and Mother King's house are seen in the distance; and the last occupant, a very aged milkman, told the writer that he well remembered this famous march by his cottage, the men being mostly drunk, in great disorder, and accompanied by hundreds of trulls. Coeval with the "Spectator" and "Tatler," this cottage must have been a delightful retreat; as, at that time, there were not a score buildings between it and Oxford-street and Montagu and Bloomsbury Houses. Now continuous rows or streets extend from London even to this spot. fort over inconvenience, of health over sickness, would result from adapting a steam-mail to India. Men are so much the victims of habit, as to oppose strenuous and unfounded objections oftentimes to schemes pregnant with public utility; as a few think and act for the many even in the most momentous concerns, so the success of this proposition will, in a great measure, depend upon the prejudice or interest of a small portion of the people. I have no specified interest either in the adoption or rejection of the measure, but only a sanguine anxiety about the flourishing of the arts and sciences, and the emancipation of mankind from ignorance, barbarism, and bigotry. Some people might doubt how intelligence could be imparted to that classic and revered land bordering on the Nile, where Euclid and Ptolemy, and Sesostris and Aristotle, flourished; and where thousands of thronged cities, temples, and palaces, were once crowded, whose ruins still strike the beholders with admiration and wonder. As a steam-boat would be only like a meteor passing through the region of darkness, yet the desolation of Egypt, on one hand, would be a Pharos to the nations of Europe, I hope equally monitory to tyrants and slaves; and, on the other, the bigotted and besotted people of Egypt would be aroused by a transient example of the light of public spirit. I have no means of knowing the exact distance from place to place described in the annexed route, as I have only the benefit of maps; but I apprehend the calculation is sufficiently correct for general purposes. I have made no allowance for contrary winds and tides, as such as act in opposition at one time will be favourable another. As a steam-ship would still be a phenomenon on the Arabian sea, I shall not venture to recommend it to sail during the whole of the monsoon months. I lay down the following route as an approximation to the truth; and I think, by good management, that voyages could be effected in a shorter time. For the convenience of passengers, and for taking letters and light parcels, and public dispatches, and for the purpose of taking passengers on-board, who may be going to the Mediterra nean, to Egypt, or to India, from the latter places, or of putting the mail for Gibraltar, or Malta, or Rosetta, and the short passengers, on-shore at any of those places, the steam-mail could call; another steam-mail could be stationed at Gibraltar, ready stored; and the mail-bags, parcels, and passengers, could be removed out of the one from England into the one for the Mediterranean, to Malta, Rosetta, and to Cairo; passengers from the south of Europe could be taken on-board at Malta, for Egypt or India. From Malta it is only three days' sail to Toulon or Marseilles, by a steamboat. Although ships are not able to get over the bar at the mouth of the Nile, near Rosetta, yet the steamboats, from drawing so little water, would not experience the same difliculty: the steam-boat navigation is singularly well adapted for the Nile; and, it appears, that the mouth of the Nile, on which Rosetta stands, would answer better than any other. Bulac is the port of Cairo, a harbour about two miles below that city; and, for the distance of 100 miles, I have allowed one day, a space of time more than sufficient for that purpose. The Nile is navigable for a considerable distance above Cairo, as the merchandise of the Red Sea is landed at Cossier, and from Cossier it goes by the caravan to Girge on the Nile, near 300 miles above Cairo. I have recommended the passengers to disembark at Cairo, in preference to going up the Nile to Girge, on account of the land journey being more laborious in that country, and being not half so far from Cairo to Suez, as from Girge to Cossier on the Red Sea, the former being only about seventy miles, while the other is above 160 miles. I am not aware that there is any regular caravan from Cairo to Suez; but one could. be established to meet the steam-mail, and to convey passengers, goods, &c. across the Isthmus: in this track, there is still seen the remains of a canal, which, for some reason, does not appear to have been opened, either from some apprehension that, by turning the course of the Nile into the Red Sea, it would cease to overflow the Delta; and, consequently, that fertile district 1824.] Proposal for an East-India Steam-Mail. district would become a desert; from the cessation of irrigation, or by the death of the projector, or by some public commotion. It might have been begun by Sesostris, the first King of Egypt who had any idea of commercial enterprise, and of whose power and grandeur more is probably related by Diodorus Siculus than is true, yet there is no doubt but he was a powerful sovereign, a great promoter of the sciences at home, and exercising a paternal care over the many nations he conquered. His traditionary historians say, that he dug canals near Memphis to facilitate navigation, and to unite by water distant provinces with one another. Sesostris is said to have fitted out 400 ships on the Arabian gulph, in an expedition for India. The long and splendid reign of Sesostris does not appear to have confirmed the commercial habits of the Egyptians; for, on his death, they seem to have relapsed into their former state; and, if he was the projector of the canal, the remains of which exist between Suez and Cairo, and died before the undertaking was finished, probably his successor did not prosecute it. Perhaps this speculation may be corroborated on the authority of Strabo, that the Lower Egypt was nearly an uninhabited swamp, and the precaution that might influence other kings of Egypt might not him; by the canals, dikes, and drains, he made, hé considerably improved Egypt; and, in D'Auville's map, there is still the course of a wall marked out between Cairo and Pelusium, or Tineh. After the destruction of Thebes (vide Strabo), commerce descended to Memphis, which in turn became the focus of wealth and activity, and the residence of the kings, who, like men of the same trade in other countries, lavishly squandered the produce of other men's industry. Memphis, of which some idea may be formed from those colossal efforts of man, the Pyramids, and other stupendous ruins, fell, in its turn, in consequence of the barbarous temper, military manía, and odious despotism, of regal tyrants; and Alexandria, in consequence of an opposite policy being pursued, succeeded to its splendour and commercial importance. This city was built by Alexander on the western side of one of the mouths of the Nile; this philosopher, who was the pupil and companion of Aristotle, might be expected to 483 select a situation combining every commercial advantage: his early death does not appear to have impeded the rapid progress of Alexandria. The influence of the common will of the people, and the inviolability of the persons of Alexandria, collected the people, and accumulated the riches of all nations under the reigns of the earlier Ptolemies. Under these sovéreigns, who were the patrons of the arts and sciences and commerce, Alexandria soon acquired unrivalled influence and wealth. Wise governments should be contrasted with the rapine and despotism that so frequently desolate other states; wherever men have justice, the arts and sciences flourish, and, wherever life and property are at the command of one or a few, they are extinguished. Despotism is like the Upas tree, it destroys every thing but itself: nothing but the hateful tyranny of kings has converted those fruitful regions into a wilderness, inhabited by brutal slaves. Ptolemy, the friend and successor of Alexander, erected a light-house on the island of Pharos, which was accounted, from its splendour, one of the seven wonders of the world, a work that shows his attention to the wants of the people. His son and successor, in order to unite the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, to facilitate the commerce between Arsinoe and Alexandria, and to destroy the trade that had begun to resuscitate at Tyre, began to dig a canal between Arsinoe (called after his sister) and Pelusium, a distance direct of about eighty miles, of thirty cubits depth, and 100 in breadth; (vide Strabo:) this canal would not have drained the Delta, as might be apprehended, by the one from Suez to Cairo'; and Ptolemy probably saw this objection, by digging the other, or the one from Suez to Cairo, which would have been the most direct to Alexandria; but the turning of the course of the Nile would have destroyed the fertility of the Delta, now indispensible to the prosperity of Alexandria. From some cause, the Pelusian canal was never opened, and Ptolemy was compelled to take to the route through Upper Egypt, supposed to be merely that used by the kings of Thebes and Memphis. Probably it was on account of the more difficult navigation of the top of the Red Sea, or Sea of Suez, that the canal was abandoned, as Ptolemy founded a city some distance down down the Red Sea, and called it after his mother Berenice: although its precise situation is now doubted, yet he laid it down in latitude 23° 50′, Pliny says, it was 258 Roman niles from Coptos, the situation of the modern Kypt, then a city three miles from the Nile, but which communicated with the river by a canal, of which D'Anville says there are still some remains; and, from Coptos, the goods were sent down the Nile to Alexandria, so that ships could arrive at Berenice without the navigating the sea of Suez; perhaps, in the imperfect state of navigation, it might be cheaper to send the goods from Berenice to Coptos, than from Suez to the Nile. But I know from an officer of high rank in the English navy, that the Red Sea is navigable up to Suez, and even to behind the town, for ships of greater draught of water than a steam-boat. Ptolemy, for the accommodation of the caravans, built inns, or caravanseries, in the desert of Thebais, where he found water; and, through this track, the commerce between Berenice and Alexandria was carried on while Egypt continued an independent state. There can be no doubt but the affluence of Thebes, of Memphis, and of Alexandria, was in a great measure derived from their commerce with the Arabian and Persian gulphs, and with India; and the Phenicians and the Jews, no doubt, were direct and indirect sharers, in the treasures of the Fast. The town that monopolized the trade with the East was sure to ac-. quire wealth with astonishing rapidity; and, wherever the natural rights of the people were respected, trade flourished; but, where the sovereign had no deference to any but his own, poverty and frightful despotism reigned. In the calculation, I have allowed two days to travel from Cairo to Suez, a distance of seventy miles. I am not aware that there is at present any accommodation for travellers by the way, and I expect little water is to be procured; but, perhaps, water could be obtained in several places along the route, either by common measures or by boring, as is sometimes practised in England. If water could be procured, three or four caravanseries could be built between Suez and Cairo, after the manner of Ptolemy, between Coptos and Berenice, which would materially lessen the inconvenience of the journey. The number of camels that would be required to form the caravan would depend upon the number of passengers, luggage, and parcels; large and strong camels generally carry 1000, and even 1200 weight, (vide Buffon,) the smaller ones 6 or 700; and Raynal says, the price of a camel is about two guineas, so that the original cost is trifling, and the keep is equally cheap. Whoever embarked in the proposed scheme, should keep a sufficient number to transmit the contents of the steammail across the isthmus without delay, M. Volney says, "In travelling through the desert, camels are chiefly employed because they consume little and carry a great load. His ordinary burthen is about 750lbs. his food whatever is given him, straw, thistles, the stones of dates, beans, barley, &c. with a pound of food a-day, and as much water, he will travel for weeks. In the journey from Cairo to Suez, which is forty or forty-six hours, they neither ate nor drink; but these long fasts, if often repeated, wear them out." The distance across the desert is not farther than from Portsmouth to London, and the changed mode of travelling would neither be disagreeable nor insalubrious, and cheaper to the conductors than the present stage-coach travelling in England. If local circumstances would admit the making of an iron railway, steam-carriages might be used. To prove that large burthens have been carried across the isthmus, I may be allowed to mention, that the Venetians sent wood, and other materials, up the Nile to Cairo, from whence they were carried by camels to Suez. From this celebrated port, in the year 1508, four large vessels, one galleon, two gallies, and three galliots, sailed to India. A similar practice seems to have been adopted by Solomon, who had conveyed wood from Cilicia, and Mount Libanus, to Pheni cia, by way of Torsus; and, from Phenicia, it was conveyed on the backs of camels to Hesion-Geber at the top of the Red Sea, near the present Suez. It would be necessary to obtain the permission of the Ottoman court, or more immediately that of the bey governing Egypt, who, for an annual sum, would not only grant the mail business to be transacted, but afford protection against the hordes of robbers that infest several parts of Egypt. As there would be interest conferred, there need not be much opposition ex peeted |