A glorious sunset inaugurated our first night at sea—of the order of the Golden Fleece, as it might be called—a distinct type, when in a windless sky a large field of delicate fleecy cirrus cloud spreads in a level field from west to east, and as the sun sinks its under edges are lighted up by golden light, changing to orange, scarlet, and crimson, when he disappears beneath the horizon. So our voyage began propitiously, and with a smooth sea. Early the next morning we passed through the Straits of Bonifazio, between Corsica and Sardinia, the coasts of which we had a glimpse of through our port-hole, and on the morning of the third day, after a little tossing, we sighted Sicily, passing Scylla and Charybdis at the entrance of the straits, and close to Messina. Etna soon came into view, its summit covered with a crown of snow (as we had seen it on our visit to Taormina in 1904).
The Calabrian coast, too, was very interesting, the mountains of striking form, and the lines very varied all along to Cape Spartivento—the toe of the boot-shaped continent of Italy. We could see the little white towns along the coast and among the hills, and the monasteries perched high upon crags. Etna gradually faded away, like a vision, beyond the dark blue edge of the sea, and almost immediately after passing the cape we encountered a strong easterly wind from the Adriatic, which met the Mediterranean here.
At sunset there were huge banks of grey clouds of fantastic shapes rising like high wooded islands, but we had moonlight on the waters every night.
Those grey banks of cloud, however, were ominous, and by November the 24th the weather grew so rough that the “fiddle-strings” became necessary on the tables in the dining-saloon, where the attendance, too, grew distinctly thinner. Towards evening we sighted the cliffs of Crete (Candia), the fissured, mountainous, and dangerous-looking coast plainly visible in the sunlight, though a bank of cloud covered the summits of the island.
After much tossing and rolling through another day and night the lights of Port Said were sighted about four o’clock on the morning of November 26. There was a powerful search-light from the lighthouse. We got into harbour about 5.30, and the coaling began. It was a weird scene. Six black lighters were hauled alongside our steamer, three on the port bow and three on the starboard, and boats crowded to the water’s edge with coolies in long ragged garments and turbans, mostly of a dusky red and blue, the colours shining through the coal dust which darkened their naturally swarthy visages and forms. As these crowded boats approached with their weird passengers, one had an irresistible suggestion of Charon ferrying lost souls across the Styx—there was generally only one pair of oars, as the distance to the steamer from the wharf was very short. Well, these were our coal-slaves, upon whose cheap labour the speed of our steamers depends quite as much as on their own engines, one felt. From the boats they scrambled into the lighters—some shovelled up the coal into hand baskets of matting which others lifted on to their shoulders and carried across a narrow plank into the ship, forming a weird line of black figures silhouetted against the shining water. The coolies worked hard and fast in a black mist of coal dust and kept up a continual hubbub of cries in Arabic and other strange tongues which added to the weirdness of the scene.
COALING AT PORT SAID—AND AFTER!
Port Said looked very new and flimsy, and was hopelessly vulgarised by flaming posters and advertisements of Western origin both in French and English. Boats swarmed round the ship’s side, and swarthy eager-eyed hotel touts came aboard in Fez caps, as well as a motley crowd of traders, Egyptian conjurers, and European musicians who played the latest popular waltzes. We were glad to escape the coal dust and go ashore, where an intelligent but probably not too scrupulous Egyptian guide undertook to show us everything, and we went with him round the town, passing through the market crowded with the picturesque life of the East, which indeed showed itself everywhere through the thin veneer of modern European commercialism. A venerable-looking prophet swept the streets, and, of course, there were plenty of street arabs ready to turn “cart-wheels” or anything that would turn a more or less honest penny in their direction, and the cry of “Backsheesh” was raised on the slightest provocation. Our guide took us into a small Mohammedan mosque, modern, but, of course, strictly according to the traditional plan and oriented towards Mecca. We had to put on loose canvas shoes over our own shoes to enter the sacred precincts, and our guide gave us a long exposition of the necessary ablutions to be performed by the faithful before and after prayers, and showed us the water tank fitted with taps, at one of which a devotee was busy having his wash.
SPOILING THE EGYPTIANS? OR BEING DESPOILED BY THEM!