As in the Cairo of
Mohammed Ali's day, every house-holder should be made responsible for the
cleanliness of his surroundings. The Castle-prison, too, rarely lodges
fewer than a dozen convicts. These men should be taken away from
'shot-drill' and other absurdities of the tread-mill type, which diversify
pleasant, friar-like lives of eating and drinking, smoking, sleeping, and
chatting with one another. Unfortunately, humanitarianism does not allow
the lash without reference to head-quarters. Labour must therefore be
light; still it would suffice to dig up the boulders from the main
thoroughfares, to clean the suburbs, and to open the mouths of the fetid
and poisonous lagoons.
Mr. William M. Grant, the clever and active agent of our friend Mr. James
Irvine, came on board to receive us, and housed us and our innumerable
belongings in his little bungalow facing 'Water Street.' We found life at
Axim pleasant enough. Even in these days of comparative barbarism, or at
best of incipient civilisation, the station is not wholly desert. The
agents of the several firms are hospitable in the extreme. Generally also
a manager of the inner mines, or a new comer, enlarges the small circle.
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