THE MYSTERIES OF RAS-EL-TIN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3495, 19 September 1882, Page 4

THE MYSTERIES OF RAS-EL-TIN.

The war in Egypt is on historic ground, and stories are to be told of every patch of land on which an English cannon ball falls. The palace of Ras-el-Tin is a prominent object as one approaches Alexandria from the ■water, and is held iv great veneration by every loyal Egyptian, who never passes it without the usual salaam, which represents mingled vene/ation and awe. The veneration will hereafter be very properly dispensed with, for what was thought to be invincible has been riddled and ruined by shot and shell. The awe will cluster still about the broken debris of what was a week ago one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, for the weird and horrible stories that are connected with it will not be easily forgotten. Many and many a crime that ought to bring the blush even to a Moslem cheek has been safely housed in obscurity under ite roof. Gaboriau could make a novel out of any one of a dozen score of mysteries that cling to it. The oldest inhabitant living on the opposite shore of tho bay can remember seeing, again and again, under cover of the night, a veiled boat stealing out from this same palace, from which, •when the proper distance had been reached, •was dropped a ballasted , stack just big enough to suggest that what was once a man was in it. He had been too rash, perhaps ; or possibly he had suddeuly acquired dangerous information ; or he had, rnaybap, fallen desperately in love with the wrong woman. Whatever the difficulty was, the time bad come for him to die, and the bowstring or the subtle poison had done its ■work, and the quiet waters of the bay would never give up their dead. One who walked on the alabaster floors of this palace was compelled to pull off. his shoes oi , to put on oversocks; but the cannon ball entered without so much as "by your leave," and not only ripped up the alabaster floors, but opened a great many memories which lessen our sorrow at its destruction.