“strip of herbage strown”
embroidered with palm-trees, and these elements of Egyptian landscape steeped in the translucent atmosphere are relieved by striking bronze-coloured figures in blue robes and swarthy Arabs in white in the foreground on the sand-banks, or an occasional string of camels.
We reached Suez about midday and anchored off the town. The Consul’s tug paid us a visit, and our vessel was soon surrounded by a small fleet of picturesque craft with lateen sails, and gunwales painted with eyes, and in the semblance of quaint fish in bands of green and white, manned by swarthy Arabs and Egyptians. These brought cargo and provisions to be hoisted on board, and the process took an hour or two, but in the afternoon we steamed away again and entered the Red Sea.
The weather grew perceptibly warmer, but was still not oppressive, and there was a cool breeze in the evening. There was a beautiful roseate light at afterglow on the eastern shore, where Mount Sinai was pointed out, and the well of Moses, and the traditional place of the Israelites’ passage of the Red Sea. The sun set in gold and purple behind a bold range of craggy mountains on our starboard side, and a splendid moonlight night succeeded, the moon nearly at full.
On the morning of the 28th November we passed “The Brothers” lightships to starboard, and the next day we were out of sight of land, with a pleasant breeze under the double awnings of the upper deck, enjoying the best summer weather, which we should think ourselves lucky to have in England. The Red Sea was really as blue as the Mediterranean, though of course subject to changes according to the sky, which turned to a wonderful clear greenish gold after sunset, powdered with small dark clouds which floated across it; a violet flush above the gold blending it into the deep blue of the upper sky, the small floating clouds against it showing ashy grey, while against the gold of the afterglow they looked nearly black, the sea being of a rather cold metallic blue. The serene weather and the splendour of the moonlit nights continued, but the temperature rose considerably, reaching 88° Fahr. in our cabin, which was on the starboard side of the ship. It is as well to remember that port side cabins are cooler for the outward voyage, and those on the starboard side for the homeward voyage, as going eastwards the heat of the sun falls on the starboard side necessarily for the greater part of the day, while going westwards of course the reverse is the case. This applies more particularly to the Red Sea.
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA
(Therm: 88° or so!)
On November 30th we passed the island of Jubbelteer, on which was a lighthouse, and later, “The Twelve Apostles,” a series of rocky volcanic-looking islands of bold and angular outline, and apparently barren. Sea-birds, however, were seen with black and white bodies and brown wings flying close to the water.
On December the 1st we passed Mocha, of coffee celebrity, and the island of Perrim, where there are lighthouses and signal stations, but, like the other islands we had seen, otherwise desolate in the extreme. Later the Arabian coast came into view and the sea was dotted with the sails of Arab dhows. The coast as we approached Aden showed volcanic-looking mountains, striking in form and bold in outline, with stretches of sand and rock between. Aden was reached about 2 P.M., a school of dolphins playing about the ship as if to welcome our arrival.
Aden looked a queer uninviting place, baked dry by the sun—a cluster of temporary and barrack-like buildings huddled together anyhow along the rocky coast, with never a tree to be seen; the ragged, precipitous, barren edges of extinct volcanoes forming a background to the red-roofed barracks and bungalows.