Interview with Mehemet Ali in his Palace

Whilst in Alexandria, May 12, 1839, Mr. Roberts says, “I received from Colonel Campbell an invitation to breakfast and afterwards to accompany him to an interview with the Pasha, which had been arranged for that day. Our party started for the Arsenal, where Mehemet Ali was ready to receive us. After passing through numerous guards we were ushered into the presence-chamber, which, from the window, commanded a magnificent view of the harbour. The fleet, consisting of about twenty sail of the line fully equipped the Arsenal, the dockyards, and numerous batteries­ displaying a power created by his own forethought and energies lay before us, a glorious scene. The room was spacious and lofty, and crowded with officers in rich uniforms, many of them wearing their decorations. The Pasha was in simple costume, without any mark of distinction upon him which Nature had not stamped.”

Colonel Campbell was busy explaining to the Pasha the enthusiastic Lieutenant Waghorn’s idea of the overland rail route to India. And from memory, Roberts made a drawing of the scene; the lithograph. It is filled with portraits, including his own, Waghorn, M. Linanr and other Englishmen are seated on a long divan in a balconied room against a wide background of the Pasha’s fleet at anchor in the harbour.