The route from Egypt to New York City.
APRIL 4, 1880
I must start this diary by saying I am sorry in advance for my bad speling. I never went to school or had a teacher to help me learn. But I am trying to get better by myself. The more I practice the better I will become. So I will
APRIL 5, 1880
Why am I doing this? You are probably asking. I am doing this so that if I die someone might see these words & maybe remember me in some small way. They will remember that I lived & my life mattered. Every human beings life should have meaning. Even mine. I am somebody.
But I don’t even know how old I am. I am not sure, anyway. People say I look like I am about 10 years old. But I could be as young as 8 or as old as 12. I can’t say for sure because I have no berth certificate. I don’t know when my birthday is. I have never had a birthday party, that I remember. I have no address. I have no parents.
Not anymore, anyway. I once had parents, of course. My mother worked in a bake shop, but I barely remember her. My father was a mechanic. He could fix anything. We lived in England then, north of London. Instead of sending me to school, I was my father’s helper in the factory from the time I was very little. He taught me how the machines worked, & how to fix them when they broke down. I liked doing that, & I got good at it. But that was a wile ago. I have not seen either of my parents in years.
Mother & father yelled at each other allot. They also drank
I made my way to London on a bus, but there was nothing for me there so I kept going south. My parents tried to find me & bring me home. They almost succeeded. But I managed to avoid them, & the police.
They were chasing me when I stowed away on a boat that got me across The English Channel to France. I will never go back to England again. I will never see my family again. & I don’t care.
I did not speak French & could not be understood by the people there. So I kept moving. Sometimes on trains. Sometimes on foot. Sometimes people helped me with food or coins. Sometimes people were mean to me. Sometimes I went without eating four days at a time. This has not been an easy life. But I am alive. & that is all that matters.
I do not know exactly how I got to the city of Alexandria, which is in the northern part of Egypt. All I remember was that I was in Italy & some bad men were chasing me because I took some food off the table where they were eating. I thought they were finished eating, but I guess they weren’t. It doesn’t matter now. I hid out on the first boat I saw. & then it started moving. I didn’t know where it was going.
It took me here, to Egypt, on the continent of Africa. I do not understand the language they speak here either. I must find a way to get out of this place. I cannot stay here, & I am not going back to England. There is nothing for me there, except for other people who speak the English language. I don’t know where my life will lead me after this.
APRIL 14, 1880
Today I watched as an Egyptian family ate their dinner in a sidewalk restaurant on Fouad Street. Why do people order meals & not finish them? They waste so much good food. I eat every scrap of food I can get my hands on. When the family paid their bill & got up to leave, I ran over to the table before the busboy came to clear off their plates. I grabbed as much as I could carry in my hands, mouth, & pockets. It will be enough food to last me for a few days, at least. This is not stealing, I believe. The food would only be thrown in the garbage if I did not take it.
Alexandria is a big harbor city on the Mediterranean Sea about 200 kilometers from the capitol city, Cairo. There are lots of boats coming in & out all the time. Mostly small fishing boats. I spend my days watching boats in the harbor to see if one of them might be able to take me somewhere, anywhere. But I have no money to pay for a fare. I will need to sneak aboard a boat. This, I believe, is also not stealing. The boats are going to go where they go weather I am on them or not. It does not cost them anything for me to be on them, so why should I have to pay?
Someday I will have a job so I can earn money & buy my own food, boat rides, & other things I need. Until that day comes, I must do what I can to survive.
JUNE 7, 1880
It will be very hard for me to sneak aboard a small fishing boat. But I have been watching one particular black vessel in the harbor for several days now. The name on the side of it is Dessoug.
The Dessoug is the biggest steamer in the harbor & it has been sitting in the water ever since I got here. It is not in great shape. I can see that it is filthy & there is damage on the starboard side near the waterline. I thought that perhaps it had been abandoned.
But today I saw a group of very important looking men in nice clothes having serious discussions, walking around & pointing at parts of the ship. Before they left, they lowered the Egyptian flag & raised an American flag on the masthead. That was curious.
They were speaking English with American accents, which I don’t hear a lot. I crept closer so I could make out what the men were saying without letting them know I was listening. It was good to hear my own language again.
I may be mistaken, but it sounded like the men in nice clothes have bought The Dessoug & plan to sail it to America. I do not know why.
I have never been to America. People say it is an amazing place where the streets are paved with gold. I don’t believe a word of that. Gold is probably the worst material one could use to pave a street. But they say there is freedom in America. People can do & say & believe what they want there. & best of all, English is spoken in America.
America is the land of opportunity, they say. So that is where I hope to go. Perhaps I could go to America & start a new life there. But first I will have to find a way to get aboard The Dessoug.
JUNE 8, 1880
The strangest thing happened today. I observed a group of laborers with screwdrivers & other tools removing some of the plates on the hull of The Dessoug. I counted over 30 plates they took off, each one a few feet tall & wide. They took off thousands of rivets. They made a big hole in the side of the ship.
The boat is in dry dock & the hole is above the waterline. But even so, why would anyone cut a hole in the side of a ship? A ship needs to be watertight, of course.
As the day wore on, I could see that much work was going on inside the cargo hold of The Dessoug. Hammering & drilling & banging. Lots of activity. I could not tell what the men were doing in there. It looks like they are trying to strengthen the inside of the ship’s hold with steel beams. They are getting The Dessoug ready for something. It appears as though they are trying to make the old wreck seaworthy.
I have come up with a plan. I will sneak into The Dessoug threw the hole they have opened up. Then I will not have to board the ship in the usual way & present a ticket. I could go to America, if in fact that is where The Dessoug will be going. But I will wait until the right moment, when I can sneak on without being seen.
JUNE 9, 1880
Now I know why they cut the hole in the side of The Dessoug. It is so they can put something inside the ship that is too big & heavy to put on the deck. The thing is completely covered by wooden boards, but it is the shape of an obelisk. I think they are going to slide it into the hole!
From what I have overheard on the street, a large obelisk stood near the shore here until recently. It had been there for centuries, ever since it was carved by ancient Egyptians.
And then the Americans came. I don’t know how they did it, but they talked the Egyptian government into giving this obelisk to The United States. Or maybe they are just stealing it. But that is a pretty big thing to steal. Somebody would notice for sure.
Anyway, before they brought it to the harbor, the Americans had to lower the obelisk to the ground. That must have been a heckuva job! The thing is solid rock. How did they topple it over without breaking it? I will never know. But then last night, they rolled it here by putting it on top of cannonballs in an iron track.
Today as I was sitting here watching the ship, I saw a large group of men. There must have been 100 of them or more. & they were not fancy men in fancy clothes. They looked like laborers. Only a few of them were speaking English. They were using ropes & brute force to pull the obelisk along the dock until it was very close to The Dessoug.
I decided to join them. My hope was that the Americans might see me helping in their efforts & hear me speaking English. Perhaps they will invite me to be part of the crew when the ship sails. & if they don’t, helping them might give me the opportunity to see the inside of the ship & find a hiding place on it.
It was very hard work, even for 100 of us. The obelisk is even heavier than it appears. But inch by inch, we dragged it over to the ship. One of the Americans seems to be in charge, telling everybody what to do. Nobody told me to leave. They need all the help they could get.
