His Highness Was In His Own Palace, And Was
Consequently Not Visible.
He was in deep grief, and strict
retirement.
It was at this time that the European newspapers
announced that he was about to resign his empire; but the quidnuncs
of Alexandria hinted that a love-affair, in which the old potentate
had engaged with senile extravagance, and the effects of a potion
of hachisch, or some deleterious drug, with which he was in the
habit of intoxicating himself, had brought on that languor and
desperate weariness of life and governing, into which the venerable
Prince was plunged. Before three days were over, however, the fit
had left him, and he determined to live and reign a little longer.
A very few days afterwards several of our party were presented to
him at Cairo, and found the great Egyptian ruler perfectly
convalescent.
This, and the Opera, and the quarrels of the two prime donne, and
the beauty of one of them, formed the chief subjects of
conversation; and I had this important news in the shop of a
certain barber in the town, who conveyed it in a language composed
of French, Spanish, and Italian, and with a volubility quite worthy
of a barber of "Gil Blas."
Then we went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet Ali to
the British Government, who have not shown a particular alacrity to
accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on the ground,
prostrate, and desecrated by all sorts of abominations. Children
were sprawling about, attracted by the dirt there. Arabs, negroes,
and donkey-boys were passing, quite indifferent, by the fallen
monster of a stone - as indifferent as the British Government, who
don't care for recording the glorious termination of their Egyptian
campaign of 1801. If our country takes the compliment so coolly,
surely it would be disloyal upon our parts to be more enthusiastic.
I wish they would offer the Trafalgar Square Pillar to the
Egyptians; and that both of the huge ugly monsters were lying in
the dirt there side by side.
Pompey's Pillar is by no means so big as the Charing Cross trophy.
This venerable column has not escaped ill-treatment either.
Numberless ships' companies, travelling cockneys, &c., have affixed
their rude marks upon it. Some daring ruffian even painted the
name of "Warren's blacking" upon it, effacing other inscriptions, -
one, Wilkinson says, of "the second Psammetichus." I regret
deeply, my dear friend, that I cannot give you this document
respecting a lamented monarch, in whose history I know you take
such an interest.
The best sight I saw in Alexandria was a negro holiday; which was
celebrated outside of the town by a sort of negro village of huts,
swarming with old, lean, fat, ugly, infantine, happy faces, that
nature had smeared with a preparation even more black and durable
than that with which Psammetichus's base has been polished. Every
one of these jolly faces was on the broad grin, from the dusky
mother to the india-rubber child sprawling upon her back, and the
venerable jetty senior whose wool was as white as that of a sheep
in Florian's pastorals.
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