THE CAUSEWAY AT MASSAWAH.
At 8.15 a.m. the next morning we took our leave of the Soudan. The Bey had received orders to pay us every attention. He accordingly sent a gunboat, manned by sailors of the navy, with an officer, and we were at once rowed off to our steamer, bound for Suez. In the evening of the next day, at 5.30 p.m., we anchored at Souâkin. I and two others went ashore and spent the evening with Mr. Bulay (who was always most kind and obliging), returning to the ship at 10.30 p.m. All sorts of dreadful reports about the attack of the Dembelas on us had reached him, which, fortunately, were not true. Other startling news he gave us, such as that the Queen had been again shot at; that Arabi Pasha was getting a power in the State, and that the Khedive was likely to be dethroned, and Arabi substituted.
About an hour before we dropped anchor at Souâkin some of our boxes arrived from Kassala. We are likely to remain here two or three days taking in cargo. The day before we left Souâkin a French Consul and two American gentlemen (a doctor and missionary, who were at Shepheard’s Hotel in November last at the same time that we were), came on board. They had been to the White Nile. We have quite a menagerie on board—parrots, paroquets, tiger-cats, jackals, monkeys, baboons, extraordinary looking geese, two enormous tortoises, and other animals. We took on board a good many cattle for Suez, and left the Soudan for good at 9 a.m. next day, April 22nd, arriving, after a very pleasant, but warm voyage, at Suez about 3 a.m. At 8 we went ashore and breakfasted at the Suez Hotel. Of course Mr. Clarke, the excellent and obliging manager of this hotel, related the usual tale of our horrible massacre, &c.
CHAPTER XXV.
SUEZ TO CAIRO—ALEXANDRIA—ON BOARD THE “MONGOLIA”—PASSENGERS ON BOARD—HIBERNIAN HUMOUR—VENICE—THE PIAZZA OF ST. MARK—THE CAMPANILE—THE PIAZETTA—THE ZECCA, OR MINT—THE PALACE OF THE DOGES—ST. MARK’S—THE ARSENAL.
April 27th.—Heads and skins had to be sorted out, turpentined, packed and sent by sea from Suez, together with Mahoom and Girgas, the latter an Abyssinian whom Mr. Phillipps is taking home with him as a servant. On the 28th we left Suez for Cairo, arriving there at about 5 p.m., where I found several letters awaiting me—some of rather old dates. Of course the wildest reports of our massacre had reached Cairo, and been the topic of the day at the time. Our stay in Cairo was of short duration this time, as we found the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s steamboat Mongolia would be leaving Alexandria on the 4th May. Messrs. Colvin and Aylmer went on to India, but the rest of us started for England.
Leaving Alexandria on the 4th, with a goodly number of passengers, about 120, we had a pleasant voyage to Venice, passing on the 5th the Morea, Navarino, and Caudia, on the 6th Xante and Cephalonia, and on the 7th arrived at Brindisi, viewing Montenegro and Corfu in the distance. There we got rid of the mails, and fully half the passengers, and at 6 p.m. on the 8th steamed up the grand canal, and soon arrived at Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic, the home of poetry and song. How pleasant it was to find myself, after all this Arab life, comfortably housed at the Hotel d’Italie, amongst civilized people, I will leave the reader to judge. There were a great many notables on board, amongst them several ladies connected with officials in Cairo. We knew that matters were a little unsettled in Egypt at this time, and so drew our own conclusions. These ladies were being sent out of the way, and within 3 or 4 weeks after I had seen the last of the great square in Alexandria it was in ruins. There were on board big men and little men, both in stature and in their own estimation. There were fat men and thin men, agreeable and chatty men, disagreeable and morose men, humble and meek men, busy and sleepy men, easy-going looking men, one or two of the “Ah! I see, thanks, I’ll not twouble you” kind of fellows, Colonels, Lieut.-Colonels, and other officers, Governors and Judges returning home on leave of absence, and genial, good-hearted, jolly sort of fellows. I acted here, as I always do at home, avoided the starchy “Ah! I see—not-twouble-you kind of fellows,” full of their own importance, whose brains are concentrated in their nicely-polished boots, &c., and fraternised with the sociable, sensible, good-hearted kind. Amongst them was one of my own profession, brimful of Hibernian humour and mirth. He was a brigade-surgeon in the 68th in India, where he had been for 25 years, and was now on leave of absence. Dr. Kilkelly and I conceived a mutual regard for one another. He and I, with a Judge from Cawnpore, a Colonel and Lieut.-Colonel, generally got together on the deck, enjoying ourselves very comfortably until we parted. I cannot remember all the jokes and witticisms of our friend, Dr. Kilkelly, but I do remember one circumstance that amused us all immensely, and caused great laughter, as much in the way of saying it as the thing that was said. We had been having a great talk about the Soudan. When I happened to say “Two of our party are going on from Cairo to India, and will not be in England until this time next year,” the doctor exclaimed, “Sure, ye don’t say they are going on there now? I could not have thought a man in his senses would be going to India now. Do ye know what it is like this time of the year?”
“Hot, I suppose,” said I, whilst the others smoked their pipes and looked amused, evidently expecting some “rale Irish joke.”