The professor retired, and the conference adjourned till afternoon.
CHAPTER XXIX
VIEW OF MOUNT SINAI IN THE DISTANCE
When the professor concluded his lecture for the forenoon, the audience scattered, some of them feeling the need of more exercise; but Captain Ringgold went to the pilot-house. Like the cabin passengers, he immediately gave his attention to the mountains of the peninsula; for the African shore was little better than a blank, with nothing there worthy of notice. The pilot was an intelligent man, and he proceeded to question him in regard to the peaks in sight.
Just then there was nothing difficult in the navigation; and Twist, the quartermaster, was at the wheel, steering the course which had been given out, south south-west half west. The pilot knew the mountains as though they had been old friends of his for a lifetime. It did not take the commander long to learn his lesson; and he returned to the deck, where the passengers were gazing at the lofty points, thirty to forty miles distant, but still very distinctly seen in the clear air of the day. As soon as the captain appeared they gathered around him. He had ordered all the spy-glasses on board to be brought out, and those who had opera or field glasses had been to their staterooms for them.
"Isn't it time to see something, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave, to whom he had directed his steps.
"There is always something to be seen in a narrow gulf like this, though we shall be out of sight of land to-morrow morning when you come on deck. We are now abreast of a plateau 1,600 feet high, which extends for about thirty miles along the coast. It is a part of the desert of Kaa, which extends to the southern point of the peninsula, over which you would have had to travel first by camel for nearly twenty miles, if we had gone to Mount Sinai by the only route open to us.
"We have seen about deserts enough," added the lady.