From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

Its own appointed limits keep:

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea."

And when the Sunday morning came and the same prayers were read which they had been accustomed to hear in England, many who listened felt that, whatever oceans they might cross, here was a tie that bound them to their island home, and to the religion of their fathers.

On the morning of the sixth day we passed the island of Perim, which guards the Gates of the Red Sea, and during the day passed many islands, and were in full sight of the Arabian coast, and at the evening touched at Aden. Here the heat reaches the superlative. In going down the Red Sea, one may use all degrees of comparison—hot, hotter, hottest—and the last is Aden. It is a barren point of rock and sand, within twelve degrees of the Equator, and the town is actually in the crater of an extinct volcano, into which the sun beats down with the heat of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. But the British Government holds it, as it commands the entrance to the Red Sea, and has fortified it, and keeps a garrison here. However it mercifully sends few English soldiers to such a spot, but supplies the place chiefly with native regiments from India. All the officers hold the place in horror, counting it a very purgatory, from which it is Paradise to be transferred to India.

But from this point the great oppression of the heat ceased. Rounding this rock of Aden, we no longer bore southward (which would have taken us along the Eastern coast of Africa, to the island of Zanzibar, the point of departure for Livingstone to explore the interior, and of Stanley to find him), but turned to the East, and soon met the Northeast monsoon, which, blowing in our faces, kept us comparatively cool all the way across the Indian Ocean.

And now our thoughts began to be busy with the strange land which we were soon to see, a land to which most of those on board belonged, and of which they were always ready to converse. Strangers to each other, we soon became acquainted, and exchanged our experiences of travel. Beside me at the table sat a barrister from Bombay, and next to him three merchants of that city, who, leaving their families in England, were returning to pursue their fortunes in India. One had been a member of the Governor's Council, and all were familiar with the politics and the business of that great Empire. There was also a missionary of the Free Church of Scotland, who, after ten years' service, had been allowed a year and a half to recruit in the mother country, and was now returning to his field of labor in Bombay, with whom I had many long talks about the religions of India and the prospects of missions. There was a fine old gentleman who had made his fortune in Australia, to which he was returning with his family after a visit to England.

The military element, of course, was very prominent. A large proportion of the passengers were connected in some way with the army, officers returning to their regiments, or officers' wives returning to their husbands. Of course those who live long in India, have many experiences to relate; and it was somewhat exciting to hear one describe the particulars of a tiger hunt—how the game of all kind was driven in from a circuit of miles around by beaters, and by elephants trained for the work; how the deer and lesser animals fled frightened by, while the hunter, bent on royal game, disdained such feeble prey, and every man reserved his fire, sitting in his howdah on the back of an elephant till at last a magnificent Bengal tiger sprang into view, and as the balls rained on his sides, with a tremendous bound he fell at the feet of the hunters; or to hear a Major who had been in India during the Mutiny, describe the blowing away of the Sepoys from the mouths of cannon; with what fierce pride, like Indian warriors at the stake, they shrank not from the trial, but even when not bound, stood unmoved before the guns, till they were blown to pieces, their legs and arms and mangled breasts scattered wide over the field.

There was a surgeon in the Bengal Staff Corps, Dr. Bellew, who had travelled extensively in the interior of Asia, attached to several missions of the Government, and had published a volume, entitled "From the Indus to the Tigris." He gave me some of his experiences in Afghanistan, among the men of Cabul, and in Persia. Three years since he was attached to the mission of Sir Douglas Forsyth to Kashgar and Yarkund. This was a secret embassy of the government to Yakoob Beg, the Tartar chief, who by his courage as a soldier had established his power in those distant regions of Central Asia. In carrying out this mission, the party crossed the Himalayas at a height far greater than the top of Mont Blanc. Our fellow traveller gave us some fearful pictures of the desolation of those snowy wastes, as well as some entertaining ones of the strange manners of some parts of High Asia. He passed through Little Thibet, where prevails the singular custom of polyandry—instead of one man having many wives, one woman may have many husbands, although they cannot be of different families. She can marry half a dozen brothers at once, but must not extend her household into another family. He was now bound for Nepaul, under the shadow of the Himalayas, being ordered to report at once to the Maharajah, who is preparing to receive the Prince of Wales, and to entertain him with the grandest tiger hunt ever known in India.

With such variety of company, and such talk to enliven the hours, as we sat on deck at twilight, or by moonlight—for we had the full moon on the Indian Ocean—the days did not seem long, and we were almost taken by surprise as we approached the end of our voyage.