Pyramids and Progress: Sketches from Egypt

This highly illustrated 1900 work on Egypt old and new by John Ward (1832-1912) seeks to guide the visitor to the ancient sites while also remarking on the radical changes to the economy and the development of the modern state since the intervention of the British government in 1883 and the appointment of Lord Cromer as consul-general and effective ruler. This blending of ancient and modern can be seen in discussions of Port Said (‘not an Egyptian town at all’) alongside the abandoned and silted-up delta ports of the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Ottomans. Thebes is discussed both as a city of the living and a city of the dead, and Ward notes approvingly the flattening of the ancient town of Assouan (Aswan), to form the foundations for new public buildings, on the orders of Lord Kitchener. Ward’s subsequent book, Our Sudan (1905), is also reissued in this series.