An invitation having been tendered us that morning at the office of the U. S. Consul to visit the corvette "Essex," Captain Jewell commanding, then lying in the harbor, we repaired at one o'clock to the wharf, where gigs, manned by the ship's crew, awaited us and we were soon on board, where we were entertained by officers and crew in a handsome manner. The rendering of "America" by Mrs. Leigh Lynch on the cornet brought out an enthusiastic round of applause, while Clarence Duval captured the hearts of the seamen by doing for them a plantation breakdown in his best style. Captain Jewell kindly sent us aboard the "Salier" in the ship's gigs, which waited for us until we had donned our uniforms, and then took us to the shore.
The procession out to the Colombo Cricket Grounds, where the game was played, was indeed a novelty, and the crowds of Cingalese that surrounded us as we left the hotel and looked on in open-eyed wonder were by no means the least impressive part of the circus. There were no drags and carriages on this occasion and no gaily-caparisoned horses with nodding plumes, but in their places were heavy-wheeled carts drawn by humpbacked little bullocks and jinrickshas drawn by bare-legged Cingalese. About these swarmed the natives in their rainbow attire, the whole scene being one of the kaleidoscope kind.
At the grounds 4,500 people had assembled, the officers and crew of the "Essex" being on hand as well as a crowd of English residents and native Cingalese. We played but five innings, the result being a tie, three runs for each team, a good game under the best of circumstances, and one that apparently pleased everybody, the natives going wild over the batting and making desperate efforts to get out of the way whenever a ball happened to do in their direction. The journey back to the hotel was another circus parade, and one that Barnum, with all his efforts, never was able to equal. From the hotel we went directly to the wharf, where the steam-launch was in waiting, and with a cheer from the crew of the "Essex" in our ears we started for the steamer. As the "Salier" started again on her voyage we climbed into the rigging and lined up along the rail, cheering the crew of the "Essex" until the white forms of the men that lined her rigging were lost to sight.
The voyage from Ceylon to Egypt over the Arabian sea and the Gulf of Aden was a most enjoyable one, both sea and sky being deeply, darkly and beautifully blue, with not so much as a cloud or a ripple to mar the beauty of either, and so beautiful were the nights that it was a rare thing for any member of the party to retire until long after the ship's bells had proclaimed the hour of midnight.
The second morning after we had left the Island of Ceylon behind us we were all made the victims of a cruel practical joke, of which Lynch and Fogarty were the authors, and for which lynching would hardly have been a sufficient punishment. It was in the early hours of the morning and while we were still "dreaming the happy hours away," that the loud report of a cannon shook the steamer from stem to stern, this being followed by cries of:
"Pirates, pirates; my God, boys, the Chinese pirates are upon us!"
The report of another gun followed, and then a scene of confusion such as had never before been witnessed outside of a lunatic asylum. Tener, who was the treasurer of the party, grabbed his money-bags and locked himself in his stateroom. Ed Hanlon rushed into the cabin with his trousers in one hand and his valise in the other, and they say that I filled my mouth with Mrs. Anson's diamonds, grabbed a base-ball bat and stood guard at the doorway, ordering my wife to crawl under the bunk, but that statement is a libel and one that I have been waiting for years to deny. I only got up to see what a Chinese pirate looked like, that's all. It was a scared lot of ball players that assembled in the cabin that morning, however, and the cloud of smoke that came rolling down the stairway only tended to make matters worse. Finally we caught sight of Fogarty galloping around the saloon tables and yelling like a Comanche Indian. We began then to suspect that he was at the bottom of the trouble, and when he burst into roars of laughter we were certain of it. It afterwards developed that the "Salier's" guns had been simply firing a salute in honor of the birthday of the German Emperor, and that Fogarty and Lynch had taken advantage of the opportunity to raise the cry of pirates and scare as many of us nearly to death as possible. I would have been willing, myself, that morning to have been one of a party to help hang Fogarty at the yardarm, and some of the victims were so mad that they were not seen to smile for a week.
It was during this voyage, too, that Mark Baldwin, the big pitcher of the Chicagos, had an adventure with a big Indian monkey that the engineer of the steamer had purchased in Ceylon that might have proved serious. This monkey was a big, powerful brute, and as ugly-looking a specimen of his family as I ever set my eyes on. He was generally fastened by means of a strap around his waist and a rope some five or six feet long, in the engine-room, but one morning Mark, without the engineer's knowledge, unfastened him and took him on deck. The sight of the ocean and his strange surroundings frightened him badly, and after Mark pulled him about the deck a while he took him down stairs and treated him to beer and pretzels, then brought him back to the deck and gave him some more exercise. Becoming tired of the sport at last Mark took him back to the engine-room. The iron grating around the first cylinder enabled the monkey to get his head on a level with Mark's as he descended the stair and Mr. Monk flew at his throat with a shriek of rage. Mark luckily had his eye on the brute and protected his throat, but fell backwards with the animal on top of him, receiving a painful bite on the leg. The monkey then bounded over to his corner, where he glared at Mark, his grey whiskers standing out stiff with rage. After satisfying himself as to the extent of his injuries, the big pitcher again went for the monk, but the latter jumped from the grating to the piston-rod of the engine, and at every revolution of the screw he would go down into the hold and then come up again, shaking his fist at Mark at every ascent, and chattering like a magpie. This sight was so comical that the big pitcher roared with laughter, and though he laid for a chance to get even with Mr. Monk the rest the voyage the latter was never to be caught napping, and kept himself out of danger.
Into the waters of the Arabian Sea, blue as indigo, we steamed on the morning of February 1st, and soon after daybreak the next morning the volcanic group of islands off the African coast were in plain sight from the steamer's deck. Two hours later we passed the great headland of Guardafui, on the northeast corner of Africa, a sentinel of rock that guards the coast and that rises from the waves that are lashed to foam about its base in solitary grandeur. The following afternoon we came in sight of the Arabian coast, some forty miles distant, and later the great rocky bluffs that protect Aden from the gulf winds were plainly discernible. It was nearly supper time when we landed and we had but barely time for a glance through the shops and bazaars, when we were again compelled to board the steamer, which left at nine o'clock for Suez.
The next morning the sound of a gong beaten on the steamer's deck aroused us from our slumbers, and inquiring the wherefore we were informed that we were approaching the straits of Bal-el-Mandeb, the entrance to the Red Sea. This brought all of our party on deck to greet the sunrise, and as we passed between the rockbound coast of Arabia on the right and the Island of Perin on the left we could hear the roar of the breakers and discern the yellow and faint light of the beacons that were still burning on the shore. That morning at 10 o'clock we steamed by the white walls and gleaming towers of the City of Mocha, that lay far away on the Arabian coast, looking like some fairy city in the dim distance. The weather as we steamed along over the surface of the Red Sea was not as hot as we had expected to find it, and yet it was plenty warm enough for comfort, and it was with mingled feelings of sorrow and joy that we entered the harbor of Suez on the morning of February 7th and drew slowly toward the little city of the same name that lay at the end of the great canal, the building of which has tended to change the business of the continents. The huge bluffs of the Egyptian coast stood out in bold relief in the clear air of the morning, while from the shores opposite the sands of the great desert stretched away as far as the eye could reach. Among the larger vessels that lay in the harbor were an English troop-ship and an Italian man-of-war, and as we dropped anchor we were at once surrounded by a fleet of smaller craft. After bidding good-by to Captain Talenhorst and his officers, and seeing that our baggage was loaded on the lighters we were transferred to the decks of a little steamer that was to take us to the docks of Suez, some two miles distant. Hardly had we set our feet on the shores of Egypt before we were besieged by swarms of Arabian and Egyptian donkey-boys in loose-fitting robes, black, white and blue, driving before them troops of long-eared donkeys, with gaily-caparisoned and queer-looking saddles and bridles, and mounting to our seats as quickly as possible be trotted off to the railroad station, some four or five miles distant, and took our places in the train that was to bear us to Cairo. Suez, the little that we saw of it, impressed us as being about the dirtiest place on God's green footstool, and the few Europeans that are obliged to live there have my profound sympathy, and deserve it.