Egypt: Ancient Sites and Modern Scenes

A PART of my duties as Director of the " Service des Antiquites " in Egypt consists in an annual inspection of the monuments.From 1881 to 1886, the period of my first sojourn in Egypt, a steamboat, the Menchieh, was put at my dis- posal.She was better known to the riverside population by the name of Nimro Hadachere, No. 11.She was a flat-bottomed brigantine, pro- vided with an engine of a type archaic enough to deserve a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts.From 1840 to 1860 she had regularly per- formed the journey to and fro between Alexandria and Cairo once a month.She was then invalided on account of old age, but was again put into working order for the visit of Prince Napoleon to Egypt in 1863.In 1875 she was presented to Mariette, and after a long period of inaction, descended to me, and I made my journeys in her for five years.