At one of the stations an old Arab offered a basket of very fine fish for sale which he had caught in the Canal the night before. We got a view of the Khedive’s Palace and M. F. de Lessep’s residence at Ismalia just before running through the “Bitter Lakes,” and reached Suez before sundown. The passage through the Canal takes about two days, as the rate of progress is necessarily slow to avoid washing down the banks, and there are frequent stoppages.
Suez is a larger town and much older than Port Said, but its inhabitants depend almost entirely on the few residents connected with the Canal and Railway to Alexandria, and the pilgrims who land here on their way to Mecca and Medina, the birthplace and tomb of their Prophet. After leaving Suez the climate becomes hotter every day. The coast-line is backed by barren looking copper-coloured mountains, and the air smells hot and dry, like that of the greenhouse devoted to the cactus family at Kew. Two or three steamers with pilgrims on board for Suez were seen.
ARAB DHOW.
Among the visitors from the coast were great brown locusts, a humming-bird hawk moth, and one or two small birds. A quail flew on board, and flitted about the deck for two or three days. Another little bird, as elegantly shaped as a lark, stayed on board for several days; it was brown in colour, with almost black wing-tips; it had a band of white just above the tail, and this gave the bird a characteristic appearance, especially during its jerky red-cap like flight.
We went into Aden, and I never felt the heat so much anywhere before or since. It is a huge Dutch oven of sunburnt rocks without a sign of vegetation as seen from the harbour. It is astonishing how soon one begins to take a personal interest in a ship on which a long voyage has to be made. The second mate was the skipper of a China trader, and tells me of the palmy days before the Canal was opened, and when freights were £12 a ton. One of the quartermasters was an ex-royal yachtsman, a civil and obliging old fellow, with a sharp eye for grog. One of the stewards has been a photographer, and another is a hairdresser—rather a luxury to have aboard ship. The old Welsh stewardess was a character, with nightly tendencies towards hot rum and water and old superstitious stories of the sea. The captain is a fat, red-whiskered old sea-dog, who knows all about everything, but evidently never enjoyed an introduction to Mr. Lindley Murray in his youth. His politics are peculiar, and his motto appears to be that of the ultra radicals, “Down with everything what’s up.”
Penang was our next stopping-place, and we got ashore for two days, and enjoyed a walk around the town and a ride to the “Falls” and the “Hill.” Two days afterwards we stepped on to the Pile wharf at Tanjong Paggar or the “fenced cape” at Singapore, and our experiences of the tropics really began. The voyage for two days down the Straits of Malacca had been very pleasant, and we thoroughly enjoyed the smooth blue sea and clear sky, flecked now and then by tiny fleets of junks with their mat sails of a soft golden hue, reminding one of cornstacks at home. Bukit-Jugra, Cape Rachardo, and Mount Ophir towering up above the horizon behind the town of Malacca itself, were distinctly seen ere we reached the numerous islets near the entrance to the harbour and roads at Singapore.
A long sea voyage has its pleasures as well as its drawbacks; and in travelling eastward, more especially, it is quite possible, after crossing “the Bay,” to get a smooth voyage all the way. There are times when the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the China Sea lie sleeping in the sunshine, and a steamer runs as smoothly as a canal boat. Of course a yachtsman of the old sea-dog school is disgusted with this sort of fine weather sailing; but it is most pleasant to passengers on board steamships who can lie and read under the cool side of the awning, drinking in the fresh ozonised sea air, untroubled for the nonce by the cares of business or the whirl and bustle of the town.
A curious feeling comes over one on viewing the boundless ocean for the first time on a calm, cloudless day. It makes one feel extremely small to gaze on what appears to be the eternity of sea around, with not a speck or a sail to break the view on all sides. Then when a breeze springs up a sense of freedom animates the breast as the vessel rushes through the water and shakes the milk-white foam from her bows, as though also glad to be free. The pleasure is akin to that of the saddle. The exhilarating motion of the ship stirs one’s blood and sends it coursing through one’s veins, as she “walks the waters like a thing of life,” and the strong pure breeze fans our cheeks and the cool spray comes in our faces like a shower of dew. Well might Ruskin give our English pastime of yachting the first place amongst recreations. Nothing can be more refreshing than to stand on board a tight little vessel when there is, according to the poetry of youthful memory,
“A wet sheet and a flowing sea, and a wind that follows fast.”