Cairo 1928

Call of Cthulhu XCOCX Boston 1920 XCOCX Egypt

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Introduction

Cairo and Egypt are very much a part of international life and gossip in the 1920’s. Few people are unaffected by the romance and glamor attached to the ancient pharaohs of Egypt.

The opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922, and the breathtaking beauty of the treasures within, sparks a wave of Egyptomania that washes over the entire world. Egyptian jewelry is worn by flappers and dowagers alike; men wear tarbouches to work on Wall Street and smoke hashish from nargeeleh water pipes. The animalistic motifs of ancient Egyptian art are blended with the clean lines of Art Nouveau to create whole new interior decorating styles.

Archaeologists flock to the Valley of the Kings to take part in excavations that can make or break a career. Many others gather there to share the excitement of the daily uncovering of more treasures of the past. Many artisans make fortunes from copies of tomb items sold as genuine artifacts. Others make a fortune fro mstealing and reselling artifacts to private collectors.

The interest in Egypt extends to secret societies, who incorporate ancient Egyptian rituals into their ceremonies and attract many of the gullible with promises of ancient magics and eternal life. Many send representatives to visit Cairo and Egypt in order to gain the secret knowledge of the ancients.

Cairo, the capital of Egypt, profits from the attention of the rest of the world. Tourists fill its hotels and its bazaars. However, the 1920’s are a time of turmoil, with frequent riots and political killings. Egypt is in the transition between British rule and self government. Members of rival political parties fight each other in the streets.

Travelers visiting Cairo in the 1920’s are thrown into the middle of a powder keg of political intrigue in a city of ancient romance. This is a time rich in high adventure, a time of anarchy gradually becoming order. It is a time when guns can be carried openly in the streets by Westerners, but are forbidden to locals.

Amid all the chaos is the allure of the city of Cairo itself. This is the city of the Arabian Nights, a city with a storyteller on every corner and and jugglers and snake charmers plying their trade. It has the largest bazaar district of any in the world. This is a city of danger in storybook style, where white slavers still kidnap young foreign women, and respectable Cairene women travel the streets veiled and swathed in secrets.

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Population

• -- City (0) - Dated census
• -- Urban (0) - Dated census
• -- Metro Area (0) - Dated census

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Transportation

Traveling to Cairo

Visitors arriving in Cairo will most commonly have reached Egypt by sea, through the Nile Delta ports of Alexandria or Port Said. From both of the ports steam driven passenger and freight trains run frequently to Cairo, the trip taking approximately half a day and costing 13 Egyptian piastres for first class, and 77 P.T. for second class. Many of these trains are run and owned by the steamship companies they meet. Arrival to Egypt by land commonly involves a train journey through Palestine, possibly on the extension of the Simplon-Orient Express.

Travel to Egypt by car is highly unusual, as roads through Palestine to the east and Libya to the west are nonexistent. These areas are more commonly traveled by camel caravans.

Air travel is rare but possible in the early 1920’s, only being commonplace by 1929, with an airstrip being built at Dikheila south of Alexandria in that year. There are infrequent Imperial Airways flights from the Heliopolis Aerodrome to India and London from 1925 on.

Travel from London or New York by sea is via the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, with most vessels stopping at Marseilles and one or two other Mediterranean ports before arriving at Alexandria or Port Said. Most stopovers are of three to five hours’ duration, but breaks in the journey can be made at any of the ports visited, with the voyage continued on the next ship of the same line to visit (this may be three weeks in some cases). Small tramp steamers can be chartered at any port in the Mediterranean at a cost per passenger half that of a liner. The surroundings, however, are far from salubrious and the ship owners are not always above offloading foreign passengers at gunpoint and departing with their belongings.

To Cairo on the Orient Express

The most common route used for land travel from Europe is the extension of the Simplon-Orient Express, from London to Calais, Paris, Lausanne, Simplon, Milan, Venice, Trieste, Belgrade, Sofia, and ending in Constantinople. From Constantinople a ferry boat carries passengers across the Bosphorus; they then travel by railway to Polis (Syria), where they are carried by automobiles of the International Sleeping Car Company to either Haifa or Jaffa in Palestine. Next is a trip by railway to Qantara East, where they cross the Suez Canal by ferry and board the final train to Cairo.

The trip from Calais to Cairo takes one week in total, with average costs from London of first class 44£/15s/7d, and mixed class (first class London to Paris and to Qantara, second class the rest of the way) 35£/5s/9d. Fares from Calais are two to three pounds cheaper. All of these prices include the sleeping car supplement.

The extension service runs twice weekly from Constantinople, on Mondays and Fridays. The service delivers, as always, the utmost in luxury, with sleeping berths provided even on the automobile section of the journey.

There are silver service meals and fine entertainment; your assigned conductor stays with the group until it reaches the final destination and ensures that you are not bothered by the riffraff in the stations.

Traveling by sea can vary from extremely luxurious (first class on the P&O, White Star, or Orient Lines) to squalid (tramp steamers chartered at any Mediterranean port). The first class traveler is wined and dined and can dance the night away or gamble in casinos among the rich and famous bedecked in evening gowns and dripping with diamonds. The steerage passenger is lucky if he sees daylight from his cabins, and is restricted to the lower dining areas, where the food is adequate but never glamorous. A charter passenger may share the hold with salted fish and rats.

Travel Times

Average sea travel times to Alexandria or Port Said from

• London: 12 days to port plus half a day train trip to Cairo
• New York (also Boston or Providence): 3 weeks
• Mediterranean ports:
• Marseilles: 5 days
• Genoa: 6 days
• Constantinople: 4 to 12 days (direct or mail run)

Average sea passage fares from

• London (UK £): 1st class 38, 2nd Class 24, 3rd Class 16
• New York (US $): 300, —, 160 (2nd class not available)
• Mediterranean ports: (UK £)
• Marseilles: 24, 16, 12
• Genoa: 29, 19, 11
• Constantinople: 20, 12, 9

Fares to Port Said are usually 2£UK more than to Alexandria when traveling east, and vice versa when traveling west. Discounted fares are provided by some carriers in the low season of April to August.

Companies providing sea travel services to Egypt (in descending order of luxury and cost)

from London to Port Said

Pacific and Orient Line (P&O) (each Friday)

Orient Line (every second Saturday)

Nippon Yusen Kaisha (fortnightly)

British India Steam Navigation Co. (3-4 times monthly)

Union Castle Line (monthly)

from London to Alexandria

Prince Line (every 3 weeks)

from New York to Alexandria and then to Port Said:White Star Line (monthly)

Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Company (monthly)

Fabre Line (monthly, via Boston and Providence)

from Mediterranean ports to Alexandria

Sitmar Steamship Company (twice weekly, and SS Ausonia and SS Esperia, Genoa, Naples and Syracuse)

Prince Line (weekly, Constantinople to Alexandria direct)

Khedivial Mail Company (fortnightly; Constantinople to Port Said, stopping at all minor towns)

All of the London and New York carriers stop at Marseilles and Gibraltar; the Fabre Line also stops at Constantinople.

Custom inspections at Alexandria and Port Said are rigorous. and permits are required for firearms and explosives. After 1925 the import and export of drugs is prohibited, with death the usual penalty for traffickers. There is always a chance, however, that the inspector may be bribe-able.

The export of antiquities is usually prohibited, but licenses are available from the Egyptian Museum for genuine items deemed to be of little interest (there is a thriving underground trade in these licenses). On leaving the country a sanitary tax of 20 P.T.and passport duty of 2 P.T. are payable.

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