Again, we leave the Timseh, or the Crocodile Lake, behind, and make our way to the Bitter Lakes, through many miles of Canal. The lakes, history tells us, are the remains of a dried-up arm of the sea, where once flourished the ancient port of Arsinoe. Here we meet the slight tides of the Red Sea—that awful sea, whose waters at some seasons range to a temperature of a hundred. It was hot as we entered Port Said, it is hotter as we leave the Canal at Suez—the new port of which, with its modernized hotel, its rows of trees, and its modern warehouses, looks pretty from the water. Old Suez, a mile and a half from the new town, is visible long before we reach the fort. It is almost a pity that the steamers do not stay here a day or two. The old town is the most characteristic of old Egypt, and the rail will run you up there in a few minutes. It was the centre of the highway between Asia and Africa. All around is the desert, while mountains famed in history for ages are to be seen from afar. Egyptians tell me that Suez is preferable to Cairo as a health resort. One gentleman whom I met with told me that he wintered there every year. As we picked him up on my return, I was obliged to tell him that he did not look so well as when he went ashore a few months previously. In excuse he owned that he had suffered from a severe attack of rheumatic fever. It may be that Suez had nothing to do with that. Perhaps at Cairo they would have told me Suez was not a good place to go to. The water, however, is good, as we took a good many tons of it on board. It was well that we did so. At Aden, our next stopping-place, we found there had been no rain for nearly three years.

We stop a few hours at Suez, and early in the morning commence steaming down the Gulf of Suez, ere we float proudly over the waters of the Red Sea. At length it seems to me that we realize all that the poets have sung and painters have drawn of the Bay of Naples—unclouded skies and a sea of brilliant blue. All day long we are in sight of a romantic coast crowned with towering mountains, with diversified peaks that in the sun seem to glow with light and heat. As we approach they are brown or white or red, and then, behind, they seem dark and stern as they rise out of the sleeping waters. On our left are the Arabian mountains—Mount Sinai among them—more or less connected with the religion dear to all men of Anglo-Saxon race and tongue; the religion that has made modern history what it is—the religion which they tell us in the pulpit is yet to reign supreme. At dark—and it soon gets very dark in these regions, in spite of the grand stars which shine lustrously on us in a way of which no untravelled Englishman can form any adequate idea—we are on the Red Sea, having just passed the wreck of a steamer, as if to remind us that even in these days of science there are accidents arising from fogs and currents and hidden rocks and shoals which it is hard for any human ingenuity to guard against. Just now a good deal of interest attaches to the Red Sea. On our right are Suakim and Massowah, though too far off to be visible. Small as the Red Sea looks on the map, it is 1,200 miles long. Coral reefs and islands are so numerous that navigation is difficult and dangerous. The coast on either side seems deserted, and only now and then a lighthouse is to be seen, or the black hull of some small Arabian trader, with the well-known enormous sail from the yard-arm. However, there are one or two ports of importance on either side. The chief of all is Jeddah—with a population of 40,000—which is the port of the Mecca pilgrims, and which beside is the chief market for pearls and the black coffee and aromatic spices from Araby the Blest. Not far off is Mocha, a name familiar to British ears, though the place itself has fallen into decay.

So far as we have travelled the Red Sea has behaved uncommonly well. On the last voyage the heat was so intense that three times the ship had to be turned in order that the passengers might have a breath of cool air. As it is, no one finds the heat overpowering, and to me it yields the same amount of enjoyment one feels in a Turkish bath after the sweating process has got into full swing. We have little walking now except in the early morning, or after dark, and no gymnastic exercise of any kind. The little ones have already lost their rosy cheeks. Sunday is well observed; one way or another there is a good deal of preaching going on. The bishop takes in hand the first-class passengers, while in the evening volunteer preachers look after the souls of the second class. There was a special service also in the steerage in the afternoon, when the singing was at any rate very hearty.

Of course we gaze with no little pleasure at the island of Perim, standing in the deep water a few miles before we reach Aden. The French would have had it, the story goes, had not the Governor of Aden, who had his suspicions aroused as the French commander, who was sent to plant there the French flag, sat drinking champagne at his hospitable board, sent two notes, one to the harbour-master ordering him to delay the coaling, and another to the commander of a gunboat to sail at once with some artillerymen for Perim. Such is the story as told by Sir Charles Dilke and other clever men; but the real fact is that it had been long before taken possession of by the old East India Company. At any rate, it is of no use to our French neighbours, now that they have lost Egypt, and that the control of the Canal has passed into English hands. Now the French have no Eastern Question. How we must all envy them!

In a little while we are out of the Red Sea, which at this time of year is really agreeable. All day long we have had a strong head wind, which has rendered the sultry atmosphere quite cool and genial. Provided an invalid is a good sailor, I should say, as far as we have gone, it would be impossible for him to have a more agreeable trip, or one more likely to return him to his native land of fog and frost and rain a better man. Everyone tells me that I am looking wonderfully better for my voyage. I am glad to hear it, as what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and I write in the hope that those who can afford it will follow in my steps. I have offered myself as an experiment for the sake of my asthmatic and elderly friends. So far as I have gone the experiment has succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.

We made rather a long stay at Aden, where most of the party went ashore; I did not, for of two evils a wise man chooses the least, and it seemed to me a greater evil to be rowed ashore and landed on a sunburnt rock where no water is than to fight with the coal-dust on board and to listen to the perpetual chattering of the natives. We have to be thankful that we are safe out of the Red Sea, which is certainly, with its sunken coral reefs and ragged rocks rising straight out of the water, as difficult a piece of navigation as any of which I ever heard. A captain had need be careful. The sights of Aden are few—a low building or two on the rocks, a native town a few miles off (not worth seeing), and water-tanks more useful than picturesque. Before we had anchored the Somali boys rowed round us in their little cockleshell boats, ready to dive for any coin thrown into the water. Then came the barges, black with coal, with long, dark, lightly-dressed natives, to convey the desirable mineral on board. Their woolly heads seem impervious to the sun’s rays, and if they have dark skins, it but enhances the effect of their glistening teeth. The costume I like best is that of the native policeman, which consists of what looks to me like a nightgown, a turban, and a black necklace. A couple of gentlemen come on board: they wear blue jackets and rich-coloured silk skirts. Their hair is done up in a knot behind, and is kept in good order in front by a tortoise-shell comb. A few salesmen, with ostrich-feathers or wicker baskets, come to do a little business, but overboard the battle rages all day long, as the boys clamour for coins and imploringly stretch their skinny arms to the upper deck. A coin is tossed into the water: in a second they turn heels over head and disappear, in another second they have found it and are ready for another. The boats which take the passengers on shore are large, and manned by four or five men dressed in blue cotton. The charge is a shilling each way. The landing is easy enough, but in this hot climate I question whether a visit repays the trouble. Most of the passengers, however, seem to be of a contrary opinion; nor is that to be wondered at when I state that many of them are ladies—or in other words, true daughters of Eve. They drive out to the tanks, and come back with headache and ears aching as well. In the meanwhile the row on board is incessant, as the wild Arabs of the sea scream for coins and perform all sorts of wonderful tricks in the way of diving. From the deck the scene is interesting and animated. Aden, with its brown rocks, is on our right: and ahead and on the other side of the bay runs the yellow sand, terminating—as everything does, apparently, on this rugged coast—in a peak of rocks. It is only the rock that belongs to us, and what we see are the offices of the company and the residence of the officials. The town is a terrible place to live in. On your way to the old town you meet endless strings of camels with the produce of the country, as in Aden itself not a blade of grass grows. The harbour is alive with ships, and steam-tugs towing the barges laden with coal, and native boats. Over the water seagulls and a bigger bird, apparently a kind of hawk, fly ceaselessly in search of their prey, and beneath sharks abound, as a white man would soon find to his cost were he to attempt a swim. Apparently the shark prefers the white man to the black, and there I and the shark agree. Away from Aden, which looks charming in the warm light of the setting sun, we pass out to the Indian Ocean, and the transition is a relief, as we leave behind the perpetual jabber of the natives of that fortunate district—I write fortunate advisedly, for the English spend a mint of money there, and the natives, to their credit be it written, know how to charge. In one particular case which came under my knowledge £2 was asked for an article for which ultimately the seller was content with 2s. We were to have had an addition to our live cargo in the shape of a smart little lad, whom an Australian had engaged to accompany him. The father was willing, but the brother, a fine-looking darkey, objected, and the boy was taken off again, apparently much against his will. I am told that many of these lads are taken away—they are apprenticed to the white man for a term of three years, the white employer agreeing to pay £12 a year in the shape of wages. As boys, they seem as active as monkeys. Whilst I was watching, one of them had his boat filled with water. In a moment he was out, and, rocking the boat till it was free from water, he paddled away with his one oar as if an upset in the water was an everyday occurrence; and the men seemed as agile as the boys—tall and muscular, with long arms and legs, and without an ounce of spare flesh. I fear by the side of them our Thames watermen would have but a poor chance.

Our captain tells me he can take a holiday now for the next few days. Out on the broad expanse of the Indian Ocean we are away from sunken rocks and coral reefs. According to Mr. Froude, when he made his way to Australia, he seems to have got through a good deal of Greek and Latin. In this delicious climate study of any kind seems quite out of place; but the sea air makes one hungry and indolent. We live well, and we have a library, which yields me a novel a day—of course I skip the descriptive parts and the sentimental—and as we rush over the blue sea, a cooling breeze meets us, and it is enough to live. I feel as if I were Ulysses and Christopher Columbus and Captain Cook rolled into one. We see no land, no ships, no birds in the heavens above, no fish in the water beneath. Night comes with its clear stars and its dark waves, and our pace is still the same. It is very wonderful, and none the less so that it is a wonder of everyday occurrence. Over the ship, in all parts, we have a perfect blaze of light—nine miles of electric wire! and outside all is darkness and mystery—a darkness and a mystery man has learned to master. Science has done that much for him. Will science unveil the darkness and mystery of being in a similar manner? I fear not. Happily there is a Judge

Who ends the strife
Where wit and reason fail.

CHAPTER III.
COLOMBO TO ALBANY.

Prosperity of Colombo—Native Extortioners—Buddhist Temple—Life in the Streets—On the Indian Ocean—Stormy Seas guard Australia—English Coolness—Western Australia.