We passed through the Straits of Messina by full moonlight, and never have I beheld a scene of more fairylike beauty. The Sicilian coast seemed (for all was vague and shadowy) to rise in gentle slopes from the dark water, the land looked thickly wooded and well cultivated, and here and there appeared the little white towns, nestling among trees and vineyards, or perched beneath sheltering rocks, a peaceful and beautiful paradise. On the Italian coast the scenery was a complete contrast, the high, fierce hills stood up black and frowning against the clear sky, the country was wild, dreary and desolate. This mingling of peaceful homelike landscape, and weird rugged scenery, with the tender romance of the moon shining on the still dark water, reminded me, somehow, of Wagner's music; nothing else can so fitly represent the scene.
Our course did not carry us very near to Crete, but we saw Mount Ida rising beautiful and snow-crowned in the centre of a tumultuous land. What scorn and pity this fair Mother Ida must feel for the miserable dwellers at her feet!
We stopped at Port Said for four hours. During the first two hours I was charmed with the place; it seemed just like a big exhibition, everything was so strange and unreal. The donkeys were delightful, the Turkish traders so amusing, and shopping, when one has to bargain twenty minutes over every article, and then toss up about the price, is certainly a new experience.
During the third hour I found that the heat, dust, and endless noise and chatter were far from unreal. I had bought every conceivable thing that I could not possibly want, and paid three times the proper price for it. The Arabs ceased to be amusing; I was bored to tears.
During the fourth hour I grew to hate the place and its inhabitants with a deadly hatred, and could have kissed the ship in my delight at returning to her, had she not been covered with coal dust.
My first experience of the natives of Port Said was a long brown arm coming through my porthole, feeling about for whatsoever valuable it might find; a hearty smack with a hair brush caused it to retire abruptly. The last I saw of them was a pompous trader thrown overboard with all his wares, because he would not leave the ship when ordered. His companions in their boat, I noticed, busily rescued the wares, but seemed quite indifferent to the safety of the poor owner, whom they left to struggle to shore as best he could.
It is said that one would meet everyone sometime at Port Said if one waited long enough; I would rather forego the meeting.
The Canal, I believe, is generally regarded as an unmitigated nuisance, and indeed, the slow progress and constant stoppages make the passage through it a little wearisome, but on a first voyage its shores are most interesting. On one side are several inland seas, and small collections of the most wretched and impossible looking habitations that human beings ever inhabited, with an occasional oasis of tall green palm trees. From the east bank the desert stretches away apparently into infinity.
I was disappointed in the desert, though I hardly know what I expected; I suppose the very emptiness and immensity detract from its impressiveness; the human eye and mind cannot grasp them. We saw several mirages and felt quite pleased with ourselves, though unconvinced that they were not really oases in the desert; they were so very distinct.