| Show CHARMS OF picturesque SPOT ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE special correspondence to the members ot the coast guard service aboukir Is a rather important station commanding one of the chief islands where the smuggler mikes caches of the drug that he hopes to run to the mainland some moonless night and where the government cut ter makes sudden and sometimes tor dunate descents to the europeans of alexandria it is a pleasant place in spring for picnics and in summer for life under canvas or a mat root for those who prefer a sea blow ing nightly from open water to the clammy and adulterated ahins that come in from the two harbors of the great port to the world that 1 a little history it is the scene of nel son s triumph and deceived by the glorious words of the nile we pasha v 1 ose know ledge 0 arabic ii as great as 1 is kindness asked them their errand they replied that two years ago two women of their clan had descended into the old tomb which had just been opened had forth with been cured of barrenness knowing how much a worn an desires to bear children and save herself from the risk of divorce on the pain of seeing a rival wife the pasha let them enter his house and descend into the ailts below from which they returned with the full belief that their prayers would be heard I 1 was myself a witness to this scene there was an element of comedy in it so naive was their statement of their errand and so girlish their half tear ul enjoyment of going down into a dark place where perhaps an vaguely picture a great river mouth and harbid waters but it is a tar cry from aboukir to the rashid light house that crowns the long sandy spit bordering the niles western estuary sea and sun alone do not give its charm memories of ancient battles seem idle in the presence of the peacefulness of to day but the sand hills and palm groves the straggling little village and the ruined torts all lend their own beauty to the picture of the bay bounded on the west by a low promontory with its old tort and by the long reef that stretches out towards nelson island the bay curves round first to the southeast and then northward aga n in a huge semi circle its low sandy coast melting to a faint blue strip from which rise at regular interval the dark humped shapes of the forts and bouggs once they defended the shore as far as rosetta in the days when stirred by napoleon by the turah wars above all by mehemet all a yoke for moment to and dl ordered life to day the ai e almost as useless as the martello towers of our own sea coasts serving only as posts from which and to anich the coast guards incessantly latiol seen from tar out on the mediterranean they resemble a row of littia blue islands and only the plume like heads of a few tall palms in their inter spaces tell of the low lying land between the bouggs all along the shore fragments of ancient masonry locks smoothed into flat tables or hollowed int square basins used no doubt by the ancient bathers and stone steps testify to the numbers of visitors who must have come down for am isemena and devo alon for the two went hand in hand in the ancient world inland the low hills near the coast are full of ruined cisterns and the halt filled shafts of tombs and ancient cellars covered with slippery ice plant an dangerous at night away on the batern side 0 the village a great dune crowned with devil lurked while one could not but admire the faith that had brought a newly wedded all girl from tle hammam district some forty miles west of alexandria there are two classes of moslems at aboukir the and tha ers mostly fishermen though a few cultivate tomatoes and melons or own fruit trees chiefly figs and dates which grow splendidly in the sand everywhere within some hundred yards of the shore sweet water can be reached with a little digging and the ground is seamed with deep trenches and hollows where every leit is fresh and green though out side them the grassland is burned vellow and the flowers have disappeared in spring the grass is long and rich and for two or three months aboukir is with flowers bu by mav all is over there is a strain of northern blood among these alsher people man are light ha red and blue or gray eyes are common among them while their are occasionally almost kivlan in their fa aness some ascribe these traits to a turkish admixture certain antiquarians speak of aega ean invaders or of the greeks of I 1 da s but the natives them selves with deplorable lack of imag nation bluntly state that these fair people date from the beginning of the century when napoleon s army gar aboukir among other places at the other end of the color scale are the gypsy like Beda wins who feed their sheep and camels and grow spring barley behind the sandhill like their brethren at marlous and near kamleh ramleh they enjoy no good reau tation among the law abiding and all cases of theft or destruction of property are laid to their charge yet the villagers of aboukir like all the fellaheen of egypt are capable of lawlessness enough and it li only in the past few years that the energy of the coastguard officers has checked a molden ng fort and sloping slowly toward mahadia Is said to cover the ruins of the ancient city and th t antl qu arians debate hotly over the site of the temple of but we do not et know where the old mouth of the nile Is to be found and tor the layman it is enough that the whole neighborhood of aboukir was a cohered with houses and that everywhere coins lamps ars and statuettes are found by Beda wins scraping the ground for the spring barley crop linger around the abs A french who has built B il above a greek to find omer some n fifty miles V door the L the traffic in 1 in which some 30 per cent of he aboul ir men have at one time or another tal en pait at present all is il the contra band trade is n re and mole darger ous an 1 1 lit toi caasi ccasi nal squab bles with the ring milage 0 charaba an 1 with the RP law ins the fishermen of al il ir lea 1 lues which would be ace antel inel in me i n ince |
