Excerpt from To China and Back, 1859: Being a Diary Kept, Out and Home About seven the Pacha's sister embarked in a large white steamer, for a visit to Constantinople, amidst the firing of guns from all the Egyptian frigates in the harbour. Except for this purpose, the Pacha's navy is useless. The noise and smoke gave one a very good idea of what it must be to be in action. The mails and luggage were soon disembarked by the Arabs, and then we all went from the pier, on a hot sandy unfinished road, to the railway; having enough to do to keep our hand-baggage from being seized by the boys, hold our umbrellas over our heads, and drive the flies from the corners of our eyes, where they love to nestle. The train for Cairo started at nine. Men were selling cakes and lemonade, as well as white coverings for the hats, and little fans of matting 'to blow away the, flies with. The carriages were all in the English style, with London makers' names. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.