April 6.—We are still at anchor under Ras Benas, it is blowing so hard. The captain gave us and his officers a breakfast in Egyptian fashion: it was very good, some of the dishes being quite original to me.
April 7.—We weighed anchor at seven o'clock in the morning, it was blowing very hard, and the captain wished to stay here till the wind dropped, but Cordock induced him to go on, as he knew I was ill and wanted to get home as quickly as possible. The Arabs are dreadful cowards in a storm, and when they find themselves in one they generally begin praying, and doing nothing else. I was a little stronger, but still very ill with a bad diarrhœa.
April 8.—We had no chutney to eat with our curry and rice, so I amused myself to-day by making some. It resulted in a complete success, and proved very good. The principal ingredients were some tomatos which the cook had bought for me at Souakim. At two o'clock to-day we were abreast of the Brothers, two low coral islands, and quite chief features of the Red Sea; the P. & O. Company have put a flag-staff on the larger one. A gale was blowing very hard, and Cordock hoped to make Shadwan that night, which is a large island at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez, with a high mountain on it that can be seen for thirty miles. I hope to arrive at Suez on the 10th. It blew so hard, however, that we could not get on at all, so on the morning of the 9th we anchored at Tur, after having passed a very stormy night. When Cordock came to me in the morning, he informed me that the ship had very nearly been lost off the island of Shadwan; it was blowing tremendously hard at the time, and we were on a lee-shore; the steering-gear gave way, and the ship went round before the wind. All the Arabs lost their heads, but Cordock, with the help of his assistant-engineer and the Syrian cook, put things right. During all this commotion I was sleeping in utter unconsciousness in my cabin, and in the morning I was very glad they had not woke me up. Tur is a little place on the east side of the Red Sea; it is here that pilgrims and travellers disembark, and get their camels to start for Mount Sinai.
I went on shore in the afternoon and bought some provisions at a Greek store there, and by a most unexpected chance found some of Fortnum and Mason's preserved soups at this out-of-the-way place; they had been part of the cargo of a ship that had been wrecked in the Gulf of Suez. The goods had been bought by some Greeks of the Suez Bazaar, then sent down to Tur. I went to see the old Russian gentleman who makes arrangements for all travellers to Mount Sinai. I bought some tortoiseshell from him, and also purchased a pretty good collection of coral and Red Sea shells from a Greek who was hanging about, and who also sold me three beautiful little sponges. Cordock, the French captain, and I walked out to a grove of date-palm trees not far off; the mountains in the distance were covered with a strange purple haze, peculiar to the Red Sea, and afforded a magnificent appearance. These hills reminded me very much of the scenery of the background of some of Gustave Doré's illustrations.
April 10.—We weighed anchor at seven o'clock in the morning; but it was still very rough. The P. & O. ship passed us about five P.M. We had just enough coal to last us thirty hours, and we had to run one hundred and twenty-five miles. Thank God! the wind dropped, or I cannot guess where we should have been. We heard at Tur that an English ship was on the Zafarina reef. They also told us that it was blowing so hard that ships' boats could not get ashore from the vessels lying in the roads at Suez.
April 11.—At last I have arrived at the end of my journey, but more by good luck than good management. We dropped our anchor at eight o'clock in the Suez roads, having just got four tons of coal left. If these had run out we should have had to go back to Jidda for coal, or else gone ashore in a boat and trudged up to Suez.
Here my Journal ends. And I hope no other unhappy mortal who may go travelling in search of sport will ever have such a journey home as mine has been.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An Indian word for a large square tent.
[2] Earl of Ranfurly, Captain Grenadier Guards, who died at Souakim, on the Red Sea, May 10, 1875, on board the steamer which was that day leaving for Suez.