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[Page 28]
Alexandria has a population of about 600,000 nearly all Egyptians of course but there are large numbers of French Italian Greek, & Russian, people there. There were a fine lot of captured German ships all tied up to the wharfs, that must make the German people mad to see that, a sure sign of Britains power on the water, the day we arrived the Sultan of Egypt cleared out to Turkey. We buried our first patient here we were lucky, some of the boats had as many as half a dozen deaths during the voyage, we laid in the harbour 3 day's before we disembarked, we were not sorry to get off the ship either for we had been 51 days on the water.
We left Alexandria for Cairo on the 9th we were marched straight into the train & away we went, the trip
to Cairo was most interesting we followed the Nile for a fair distance, & as far as the eye could reach on either side of the line, was nothing but lovely green fields & groves of palm trees, with canals running everywhere, we crossed 2 or 3 very fine bridges between Alexandria & Cairo, they have peculiar sorts of houses, built of mud, & the fowls roost on top, & from what I could see the camels & buffaloes, & people all doss in together, they are very dirty in their habits, there are miles upon miles of gum tress planted along the line & they look well, even though they are in a foreign land.
We arrived in Cairo about midnight & on getting off the train, we were served with cocoa, cheese & a roll, it was very acceptable I can tell you