The train swept along the bank of the Mahmoodieh Canal, which connects Alexandria with the Nile; it is fifty miles long and a hundred feet wide, and was built in less than a year by order of Mohammed Ali. Two hundred and fifty thousand men were employed upon it, and of this number twenty thousand died of hunger, plague, and cholera. For several miles the route of the railway lay through a marsh, and as they neared Alexandria our friends caught a glimpse of Lake Mareotis, a shallow body of water, whose principal use is to supply the Alexandria market with fish. [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF ALEXANDRIA.] Pompey's Pillar came into view, and so did the domes and minarets of Alexandria. There was the usual crowd of porters, guides, and the like at the railway-station, and with some difficulty the Doctor and the youths made their way through the dense assemblage, and drove to the hotel. The boys found that the streets were paved with large blocks of stone, but the pavement was broken in many places, and had much need of repair. In rainy weather there are deep holes filled with mud, and the incautious pedestrian runs a great risk of taking an involuntary and very disagreeable bath. The morning after their arrival the party started out to see Alexandria and engage passage for Jaffa. The passage was secured, and then there was leisure for visiting the points of interest in and around the city. [Illustration: CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE AT ALEXANDRIA.] There is comparatively little remaining of the great city of Alexandria, which once contained half a million inhabitants, and boasted of the finest library in the world. The library was burnt, the buildings disappeared, the city dwindled in importance, till at the end of the last century its population was barely six thousand. Since 1798 it has been steadily reviving, till it now contains nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants, of whom a fourth are Europeans. It is the commercial capital of Egypt, and the viceroy lives there during the summer. Of its ancient monuments Pompey's Pillar is almost all that can be found. There are some tombs near the city, but they are scarcely worth visiting: there were formerly two obelisks near the water's edge, but they have gone, one to England and the other to the United States. The latter was removed by Commander H. H. Gorringe, of the United States Navy--the cost of the work being paid by Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt--and has been set up in Central Park, New York. It was famous in history as Cleopatra's Needle; the obelisk that was taken to England and set up on the bank of the Thames above Waterloo Bridge had been lying prostrate for centuries. [Illustration: POMPEY'S PILLAR.]