Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/628 (page 28)
    (17). Post and Telegraph. Offices. The Egyptian Postal System is admirably organised in all the principal towns, and now also in many smaller ones. The officials, who are very civil, are often Italians. The addresses of letters des- tined for Egypt should always he written very distinctly (particularly the initial letters), and they had better be directed to the hotel at which the traveller intends to stay, or to the consulate. Registered letters are not delivered to the person whose address they bear unless he gets a resident to testify to his identity. The forwarding of letters up the Nile or elsewhere in the interior may be entrusted to the landlord of the hotel. The General Post Office for the wdiole of Egypt is at Alexandria. Postage-stamps, bearing a sphinx and a pyramid, are issued at 5, 10 and 20 paras, and at 1, 2, 2^2 aiid 5 tariff piastres. There are letter-boxes in the streets and at the hotels of the principal towns. Egypt is now a member of the Postal Union, and the postage for letters within Egypt and to other coun- tries in the union is 1 piastre tariff for every 50 grammes (1Y2OZ0> and for book-packets 10 paras for the same weight. Post-cards cost 20 paras. Parcels not exceeding 6Y2 Iks. in weight may be sent to the countries of the union for 11 piastres tariff. Post-office orders, see p. 3. The Egyptian Telegraph System, the various lines of which are about 3750 English miles in length, extends northwards as far as Palestine, and southwards along the Nile to Khartum, a town at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile, w7hence a line diverges to Kassala, and another by Kordofan to Dar-Fur (comp. Map, p. 30). All the larger towns in the Delta have telegraph-offices, and even the Fayum is included in the system. Telegrams to Ale- xandria, Cairo, Ismariliya, Port Sarid, and Suez may be sent in English, French, or Italian, but Arabic must be used for messages to all the smaller stations. Within Egypt the Egyptian telegraph must be used (5 piastres tariff per 10 words), but telegrams to Europe should be sent by the English wires, via Malta, and cer- tainly not by the Egyptian, via Constantinoiile, a provokingly di- latory route. The following is the tariff of the English telegraph : each word (not exceeding ten letters; if longer, it is reckoned as two words) to Austria, France, or Germany Is. 8cZ.; to London Is. 10d. ; to other parts of Great Britain Is. 11 d. ; to Italy Is. 5d.\ to America 2s. 2d. (18). Weights and Measures. 1 Dirhem = 3.93 grammes = 60.05 grains troy 5 1 rotl = 445.4C grammes = 1.0131 Iks. avoirdupois (about 1 lb. Ys02-)? 1 okka = 1.237 kilogrammes = 2.7274lbs. (about 2 lbs. 11Y2 oz.) ; 1 kantar = 100 rotl = 44.540kilogrammes — 101.31 lbs. (about 101 lbs. 5 oz.). The usual weight of a bale of wool in Egypt is about 282 kilo- grammes, or 5Y2 cwt.