The missing articles were, I believe, finally discovered and routed out of an unoccupied bed, where they had been laid and forgotten by the addle-pated lady, and peace reigned.
We sailed from Trieste early on the morning of the 28th of February, and steamed leisurely on our way. The Austrian Lloyd’s “unaccelerated” steamers are not too active in their movements, being wont to travel at purely “economical speed,” and so we were given an excellent view of some of the Ionian Islands, steaming through the Ithaca channel, with the snow-tipped peak of Cephalonia close on our starboard hand.
Then, leaving the far white hills of the Albanian coast to fade into the blue mists, we sped
“Over the sea past Crete,”
until the tall lighthouse of Port Saïd rose on the horizon, followed by the spars of much shipping, and the roofs of the houses dotted apparently over the waters of the Mediterranean. At length the low mudbanks which represent the two continents of Africa and Asia spread their dull monotony on either hand, and the good ship sat quietly down for a happy day’s coaling.
Port Saïd has grown out of all knowledge since I first made its acquaintance in 1877. It was then a cluster of evil-looking shanties, the abode of the scum of the Levant, who waxed fat by the profits of the gambling hells and the sale of pornographic photographs. It has now donned the outwardly respectable look of middle age; it has laid itself out in streets; the gambling dens have disappeared, and the robbers have betaken themselves to the sale of the worst class of Japanese and Indian “curios,” ostrich feathers from East Africa, and tobacco in all its forms.
Port Saïd has undoubtedly improved, but still it is not a nice place, and we were unfeignedly glad to repair on board the Marie Valerie as soon as we noted the cessation of the black coaly cloud, through the murkiness of which a chattering stream of gnome-like figures passed their burthens of “Cardiff” into the bowels of the ship.
Port Saïd was cold, and Suez was cold, and we started down the Red Sea followed by a strong north wind, which kept us clad in greatcoats for a day or two, and, as we got down into wider waters, obliged us to keep our ports closed.
An object-lesson on the subject of closed ports was given in our cabin, where the fair chatelaine was reclining in her berth reading, fanned by the genial air which floated in at the open port,—a truculent Red Sea billow, meeting a slight roll of the ship, entered the cabin in an unbroken fall on the lady’s head. A damp tigress flew out through the door, wildly demanding the steward, a set of dry bedding, and the instant execution of the captain, the officer of the watch, and the man at the wheel!
How dull we should be without these little incidents!