John McCosh

“ The invalid will find the summer hot,but not oppressive, yet too hot to make a walk in the noonday sun agreeable; but indoors, and with open doors and windows, the temperature is most congenial. A delicious sea breeze, fresh from the southern ocean, will most probably soon set him upon his legs, put flesh on his bones, and a colour on his cheek, strengthen his sinews, raise the dejected spirits, and give a couleur de rose to his whole economy. ”

“ Bribery and corruption have supplanted honour and integrity; brigandism prevails up to the gates of its walled towns; her laws and institutions are mere dead letters; her officials have lost all amour propre, all the esprit de corps of patriots; and, provided they can have their pipe, their coffee, their Buck- shees and their hareem, they are indifferent about the welfare of their nation. Syria, under the above circumstances, is not a desirable resort for invalids from India. ”

“ Nevertheless, Alexandria, like a Phœnix,has risen probably a dozen times from the ashes of a preceding city; the very soil seems made up of bricks and mortar; the dust of forgotten ages forms a component part of the atmosphere, and renders a residence there anything but pleasant.
The only desirable port in Syria for an invalid to land at, is Beyrout. There he will find good hotels, and every convenience he could wish for, with an extensive mercantile society of all nations. ”

“ A visit to the Pyramids is a sight never to be forgotten; for with all the war of elements, the tear and wear of time, and the covetousness and destruction of man, they will live while the world lives, the loftiest and the most stupendous monuments of man's creation. ”

“ A boatman will not row a passenger and his light kit of baggage from ship to shore under half a sovereign, a porter will not trundle it to his hotel under five shillings, nor can he exist at a respectable hotel under a pound a day, nor yet a hackney-coach to drive a mile to a friend's to dine under a sovereign. Everybody has his head turned with gold ”

“ The climate of Cairo is cool compared with its latitude,and the temperature even of March, sharp and bracing, with a cloudless sky.
The atmosphere is parched and dry, with intense glare, and intolerable dust and sand, irritating the eyes, the nostrils, and the lungs, and keeping up all the feelings of catarrh, therefore, to those suffering from any affection of the air passages or ayes, it is most unfavourable. It does not appear to me that a voyage up the Nile has any commensurate advantages ”

“ Its principal thoroughfare from Jaffa to Jerusalem is impracticable to anything but a horse or a mule; the road no better than the dry bed of a mountain torrent, filled with stones, from the size of one's head to the size of one's horse. ”

“ During the greater part of the year the climate of Beyrout is delightful, but in summer it is too hot for an invalid whose chief object is to escape from heat. Many of the residents desert the city in summer, and betake themselves to the spurs of the Lebanon; where any choice of climate may be enjoyed; but there is no adequate accommodation to be got on the Lebanon, and visitors are obliged to content themselves with the rude houses of the peasantry. ”

“ Alexandria, the traveller will find comparatively a modern town, with but little remaining of the Oriental; no city, so ancient,has so little air of antiquity about it, and with the exception of Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, and a few half buried blocks of Egyptian granite, it looks as modern a town as if it was erected not above fifty years ago. ”

“ The orchards are well stocked with apple and pear trees, peaches, and figs; while the plantain, the aloe and the prickly pear, will remind him of India. Butcher's meat, and fish of the best quality, and European stores of all kinds, may be got at moderate prices. The most picturesque walks wind in every direction, over flowery flats, through densest forests, on upland heaths, even to the summit of Table Mountain. ”

“ Upon the whole, its climate may be called a warm one. In winter the thermometer seldom falls lower than 40°. Ice is unknown; and even hoar frost is to be seen only on its mountain tops; the orange, the citron, and the lime ripen their fruit in the open air in winter; and the vineyards bring forth the finest grapes in summer. It is dry rather than moist, and several months together often pass without a shower. The soil is upon the whole dry and arid; fertile spots form the exception, not the generality; a great proportion of the country is covered with bush ”

“ No captain, a stranger, can live as he would wish to live upon his pay, and unless he can turn his hands to work, and double his income by breaking stones on the road, he will require great self-denial to keep out of debt. ”

“ The population of the Cape is principally Dutch, but they have been a good deal Anglicised, and the English language is the chief means of communication. The aborigines, the Hottentots, are in many parts extinct,or are so crossed with other tribes as to have lost their identity. The Mozambique race (emancipated slaves or their descendants,) perform most agricultural and domestic labour, while a large and thriving colony of Malay extraction exercise the mechanical arts. ”

“ The curse entailded upon the country is also entailed upon the government; there is no healthy vigour existing in the body politic, the Turkish constitution is undermined, and consumption is rapidly reducing it to a skeleton. ”

“ Gold,like everything else in the world has become depreciated by its very abundance; and what was enough to support an establishment five years ago, is now only one-fifth enough. A ditcher or a breaker of stones on the roads, earns his fifteen or twenty shillings a day ”

“ The fable of the goose and the golden eggs, and the tree with the golden apples,are no fables here,for every egg and every apple is worth a nugget of gold. Extortion without moderation, and accommodation without comfort, meet the stranger wherever he goes ”

“ Animal life in all its tribes is scanty, and that of man is not an exception. In the interior one may travel a hundred miles, and not seemore than two moderate sized villages; twenty or thirty miles and not see more than two or three farm-houses, nor meet with more traffic than a chance waggon or a post-boy. ”

“ Nevertheless, the most delightful sites could be found for any number of houses on the ridges of Beth-Marie and Marhanna, only three hours ride from Beyrout.
The inducements to travel in Syria are by no means encouraging. Caravanseries there are none; the pilgrims must trust to the extortions of dragomans, who provide tents, carriages, and , and moreover, compound for the safety of their persons and property by paying black mail to the numerous petty Arab chiefs through whose districts they pass. The country is nothing but the skeleton of the land once flowing with milk andhoney ”

“ A good furnished house, fit for a small family, may be got for ten pounds per month, and board and lodging for a bachelor for about the same sum. Rondebush is four miles from Cape Town, and Wynberg eight; the road is excellent, and ominbuses run out and in every hour of the day, charging a shilling the trip. ”

“ Galle, the port of landing, is not the place for an invalid to linger at, longer than is necessary to get out of it. It is at all sea: sons hot, steamy and oppressive, with frequent deluges of rain; and Colombo is very little better. A stage coach runs every alternate day from Galle to Colombo, distance from seventy to eighty miles, and thence to Kandy and Newr-Ellia; and private conveyances are also readily found.
Kandy is 1500 feet above the sea and a cantonment for European troops. Newr-Ellia is 6200 feet on an extensive plain, with an annual range of temperature from 35 to 75. ”

“ However, he will find the Colonies full of interest and enterprise, and be able to trace the elements of society rapidly advancing to maturity; individual exertions steadily attaining to affluence; shielings rising into hamlets, hamlets into villages, and villages into towns and cities. One may walk the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, and fancy himself in a second rate city in England, such as Portsmouth or Southampton ”

“ Each voyage requires about a month to accomplish it. Invalids should take a couple of servants, four months' supplies, and their usual camp equipage, and engage a small house in the environs of Port Louis; a horse or a buggy is not much required where every one walks on foot and at all hours of the day. There are good hotels here,but enormously expensive and beyond the means of a subaltern. ”

“ Want of hands and labour is the universal complaint; wages are very high, and all articles of colonial produce very expensive. The voyage from Calcutta to the Cape is usually made in six or eight weeks ”