CHAPTER LXXXVI
SUEZ
The heroic statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who has given to the world the Suez Canal, standing for ever at the gateway he opened to the East, was plainly visible before we caught the first glimpse of land. We dropped anchor at a small distance from Suez, having to wait for the canal to be free. Our binoculars showed us a row of white houses with trees and a railway-line. That was the town of Suez. I stood on deck watching the animation on the canal. Hundreds of small boats hovered near, filled with eager vendors of curios and ostrich feathers. A great homeward-bound troop-ship filled with French soldiers, who were returning from the expedition to Madagascar, had just arrived. The climate didn’t agree with the soldiers, they were all in a wretched condition, knocked up with malarial fever. Here is a sanitary “sampan,” carrying a flag with the inscription, Santé, coming alongside our rope-ladder. The pilot allowed us at last to enter the Suez Canal, which is considerably narrower than the Thames. It’s queer to know that but for the narrow passage in which the vessel moves, you are on dry land. Our way is marked out with floating red barrels. The moving sands of the Sahara border the banks of the canal; the sky above the yellow sand looked extremely blue. From time to time tall palms with bushy tops appear. All around is an immense stillness. There is a caravan of camels marching slowly with rhythmical gait, on the sands of the desert, conveyed by Arabs in billowy white bournouses. On the opposite shore a flock of large white birds with long red legs stand contemplative each on a single leg. A crowd of half-naked little Arabs are running along the edge of the bank. They follow us laughing and begging as gaily as if begging were a game, catching the pennies thrown by the passengers.
We have very little breeze and sunshine in profusion until the stifling afternoon had passed. It is evening now; the sun has set and the freshness of the desert night is delightful. Our ship is steaming at half speed through the placid canal. An immense electric light shows us our way. A big vessel comes to meet us. Our sailors having taken the ship for a Russian cruiser, began to shout, “Vive la Russie!” but it appeared to be a Spanish mail-boat.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
PORT SAÏD
November 12th.—We reached the end of the Suez Canal about eight o’clock in the morning, and caught the first glimpse of land, a narrow stretch of reddish desert land beyond Port Saïd, a town standing on the threshold of Europe, at the Mediterranean entrance of the Suez Canal. This is almost home! As soon as we had disembarked we were assailed by a throng of natives who offered to serve as guides to us. We gave ourselves up to the care of a gigantic negro, Mustapha by name, clad in a red jersey with the words, Mustapha molodetz, which means in Russian “clever fellow,” worked in yellow worsted on it.
We had just time enough to run over the town in a tram-car drawn by a pair of sad-looking mules. There are only two or three streets properly paved, everywhere else you sink up to the ankle in the sand. The streets lined with little shops are a mass of moving colour in which swarm a variety of Arabs, Egyptians, Negros, East-Indians and a few Europeans, generally in white. We passed small taverns from which floated stray snatches of music either awfully barbaric or quite modern. Our guide brought us to the “Eldorado,” a large establishment with a roulette, a sort of bar. We were ushered into a courtyard pompously named “garden,” with two or three ricketty trees growing in it, and then entered a large hall with an estrade on which played a small orchestra composed of a dozen European girls with painted faces. Thanks to the overheated temperature, the black paint of their eyes was running down their cheeks. We tried our luck at the “roulette,” and took part in games where you are sure to be cheated. I lost two francs and Mr. Shaniawski, who was in a run of good luck, gained a louis d’or, which afterwards appeared to be a false coin.
The sharp sound of the syren from the Océanien warned us that it was time to return to the boat. Towards two o’clock in the afternoon our ship finished loading coal, and we left Port Saïd on our way to Marseilles.