In the land of the lion and sun, or, modern Persia

by C. J. Wills

We were lucky in our ship, and lucky in our captain, and we had only one fellow-passenger, a youth of nineteen; save a Portuguese doctor, who got in at Lisbon, and out at Aden, whence he was bound to Mozambique. There was an enormous staff of Portuguese (half-caste) waiters, and, with so few passengers, of course we received great, almost oppressive, attention from them.

The captain had a small dog, of the curly variety called “Tiger,” and one “boy” looked after him, and another after our little black-and-tan terrier, “Pip.”

Of this arrangement I was unaware till one day I asked a “boy”—they were much alike—if he had seen the dog about. “Don’t know, sah; I Tiger’s boy, sah; I go ask Pip’s boy, sah.”

There being so few passengers we got a state-room for four to ourselves, which opened into a bathroom. This was specially convenient, and the bath of hot and cold water very refreshing in the hot places we had to pass on our long seven weeks’ voyage.

At Lisbon we stayed two days. The entrance to the mooring-place was very fine, and the site of the old town—that destroyed by earthquake—was pointed out to us. The wine trade seemed to absorb the principal energies of the inhabitants, who were a bustling lot, and the reverse of prepossessing. As it rained the whole time we were there, we saw nothing of the place. We got a box of Bucellas, containing two dozen, for two pounds, for use on our march up country, and found it a clear light wine, but not strong enough for the ordinary English palate. It did not seem to be sophisticated.

Algiers, the next port we reached, was a delightful break in the voyage. We went ashore, saw the lions, and here my wife had her first glimpse of Oriental life. The Arabs in their white burnooses, looking in the gloaming like so many freshly-risen Lazaruses, the negroes, veiled women, camels, etc., all astonished and delighted her. We went for several long drives (in the sun and dust); we sat under the palms of the “Place,” in the dust, and heard the band; lunched at a café in the dust; bought many lovely photographs, and were very sorry to continue our voyage. We here got fresh sardines; very far superior to tinned ones we thought them.

Of Port Said and Suez there is little to be said. A kind of café chantant, with roulette on disadvantageous terms, seemed to wake into extreme liveliness on the arrival of the P. and O. boat at the more cheerful of these two towns, I really forget which; and syrens, of an elderly Teutonic type, sang and played on various instruments; while a roaring temporary trade was done in beer and syphons. The canal is too well known to need description.

At Jeddah we had two days. The first one was diversified by an invitation to the house of the consul, whose nephew was acting, and in the afternoon we went for a gallop on donkeys in the desert—such donkeys, nearly fourteen hands high, pure white; groomed within an inch of their lives, full of spirit, and worth forty pounds apiece. I forget if these animals were Bahrein donkeys, or, in fact, where they did come from, but they were the equal of any hack I ever rode—soft-mouthed, spirited, of free action. They kept up with our host’s horse with ease, and our ride in the desert was certainly an enjoyable one.

The next day the captain was good enough to give us a day on a coral reef. We went by boat to the reef, and saw Nature’s superb aquarium, where all the vegetation and fishes were in good condition—such zoophytes, such seaweeds, and such gorgeous fish, sponges of all sorts and sizes, and coral of all sorts of shapes and colours; lovely, indeed, as seen through the clear water.

The boat was run aground on the reef, and the men got us many specimens, which we carefully treasured in a foot-bath for twenty-four hours, but the great heat killed them all then. Huge sea-slugs were very numerous; they are eaten by the Chinese, and are dried and sold in large quantities.