We spent the day in Cairo, and left again in the evening by the mail to Alexandria, to go viâ Brindisi to Cannes.
We drove through the streets of Alexandria by gaslight, seeing the remains of the bombardment on all sides. What a national reproach are the ruins and the houses partially riddled with cannon-shot, the neat piles of broken brick and stone by the road. They are only just beginning to rebuild Alexandria after the lapse of two years.
We got on board the P. and O. mail steamer Assam at eleven o'clock, and weighed anchor early next morning.
Thursday.—Sea flat, calm.
Friday.—The shores of Crete and Candia in view, the bold outline of her mountains covered with snow.
Saturday.—Within sight of beautiful Zanté, an island of the Ionian Group.
A very rough night on board, half a gale blowing, and the next morning we are at Brindisi. Dear little Brindisi (though few will agree in this term of endearment), desolate and dreary as she is, greeting us with a snowstorm as she did, looked homelike and sweet to us, if only because she was so near home—a distance of no account after what we have done. The trees about the harbour were budding and breaking into blossom, notwithstanding the grey north-easter blowing.
All day we were travelling along the leg of Italy, by the storm swept ocean breaking in angry breakers along the shores, across the fertile plains of Tuscany—Bologna reached at one in the morning. Left the next day, to arrive at Genoa the same evening. Then a day spent in crawling along the beautiful Riviera, its orange-groves, olive-yards, and flowers smiling us a sunshiny greeting. Cannes reached at length that evening. Hearty welcomes. Home-like feelings. Renewing acquaintance with our little daughter Vera.
A fortnight's pleasant rest after our long journey, a gathering up of the thread of events, domestic and otherwise, since we left England in July last, and London reached on the 1st of April. Home at last.
We had been absent not quite nine months, had travelled rather more than 40,000 miles, visited America and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Netherlands India, the Malay Peninsula, India, and Egypt, gained useful information without end, and laid up stores of knowledge that will never cease to be precious till our lives' end; had many and many a pleasant recollection left of little adventures, anecdotes, and incidents such as happen in common to all travellers, and made not a few interesting acquaintances.