At length I am fairly landed in the land of the Pharaohs—a land whose records are engraved in stones, and date thousands of years before the birth of Christ. You see nothing of Alexandria till you approach it, and then it spreads out before you in all its charm, from Pharos, the most ancient lighthouse in the world, on one side, to Pompey’s Pillar on the other. Soon after I land at the quay, I make my way to the railway-station in a carriage and pair, for which I had agreed to pay a shilling. At the station the driver has the impudence to demand two shillings, which I refuse to give, whilst a dragoman, who has fastened himself on to me, though I have attempted to get rid of him, demands a shilling for his unnecessary attendance. I offer him threepence; he is indignant. ‘I am a dragoman,’ he exclaims in an angry tone. ‘What do you take me for?’ At length I give him sixpence, and he goes away in peace. I smoke my first pipe of excellent Egyptian tobacco, swallow a tiny cup of coffee, all sugar and grounds, and survey the scene from the outside of the excellent railway-station, which is a credit to the city. Every minute a blacking boy begs me to let him clean my boots, but as I need not his services they are declined. On my way I have seen every sign of industry and wealth: spacious shops, and a fine square adorned with handsome houses, and with a good statue of Ibrahim Pasha—the man to whom modern Egypt owes its first dawn of revived prosperity. The municipal authorities of the place have [Picture: Pompey’s Pillar, Alexandria] done much to promote its prosperity. The traveller will find it to his advantage to stop here a day or two. The hotels are excellent, and, with one exception, by no means dear. The harbour is full of shipping and steamers, and the number of trains laden with merchandise running between Cairo and Alexandria seems incessant. The railway-carriages are an immense improvement on those which take you from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Alexandria has a population of over 300,000, and its prosperity has greatly increased of late. The English reside principally at Ramleh, five miles off, to which there is a local train service. On your way you pass the battlefield between the English and the French, where our General, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, lost his life in the hour of victory.