African and European Addresses | Page 8

type, others working by
suction, and discharging far inland by means of weird huge pipes that
apparently meandered at will over the face of nature. The control
stations were beautifully French and neat, painted yellow, each with its
gorgeous bougainvilleas in flower, its square-rigged signal masts, its
brightly painted extra buoys standing in a row, its wharf--and its
impassive Arab fishermen thereon. We reclined in our canvas chairs,
had lemon squashes brought to us, and watched the entertainment
steadily and slowly unrolled before us.
We reached the end of the canal about three o'clock of the afternoon,
and dropped anchor off the low-lying shores. Our binoculars showed us
white houses in apparently single rank along a far-reaching narrow

sand spit, with sparse trees and a railroad line. That was the town of
Suez, and seemed so little interesting that we were not particularly
sorry that we could not go ashore. Far in the distance were mountains;
and the water all about us was the light, clear green of the sky at sunset.
Innumerable dhows and row-boats swarmed down, filled with eager
salesmen of curios and ostrich plumes. They had not much time in
which to bargain, so they made it up in rapid-fire vociferation. One
very tall and dignified Arab had as sailor of his craft the most
extraordinary creature, just above the lower limit of the human race. He
was of a dull coal black, without a single high light on him anywhere,
as though he had been sand-papered, had prominent teeth, like those of
a baboon, in a wrinkled, wizened monkey face, across which were three
tattooed bands, and possessed a little, long-armed, spare figure, bent
and wiry. He clambered up and down his mast, fetching things at his
master's behest; leapt nonchalantly for our rail or his own spar, as the
case might be, across the staggering abyss; clung so well with his toes
that he might almost have been classified with the quadrumana; and
between times squatted humped over on the rail, watching us with
bright, elfish, alien eyes.
At last the big German sailors bundled the whole variegated horde
overside. It was time to go, and our anchor chain was already rumbling
in the hawse pipes. They tumbled hastily into their boats; and at once
swarmed up their masts, whence they feverishly continued their
interrupted bargaining. In fact, so fully embarked on the tides of
commerce were they, that they failed to notice the tides of nature
widening between us. One old man, in especial, at the very top of his
mast, jerked hither and thither by the sea, continued imploringly to
offer an utterly ridiculous carved wooden camel long after it was
impossible to have completed the transaction should anybody have
been moonstruck enough to have desired it. Our ship's prow swung;
and just at sunset, as the lights of Suez were twinkling out one by one,
we headed down the Red Sea.

V.

THE RED SEA.
Suez is indeed the gateway to the East. In the Mediterranean often the
sea is rough, the winds cold, passengers are not yet acquainted, and hug
the saloons or the leeward side of the deck. Once through the canal and
all is changed by magic. The air is hot and languid; the ship's company
down to the very scullions appear in immaculate white; the saloon
chairs and transoms even are put in white coverings; electric fans hum
everywhere; the run on lemon squashes begins; and many quaint and
curious customs of the tropics obtain.
For example: it is etiquette that before eight o'clock one may wander
the decks at will in one's pyjamas, converse affably with fair ladies in
pigtail and kimono, and be not abashed. But on the stroke of eight bells
it is also etiquette to disappear very promptly and to array one's self for
the day; and it is very improper indeed to see or be seen after that hour
in the rather extreme negligée of the early morning. Also it becomes the
universal custom, or perhaps I should say the necessity, to slumber for
an hour after the noon meal. Certainly sleep descending on the tropical
traveller is armed with a bludgeon. Passengers, crew, steerage, "deck,"
animal, and bird fall down then in an enchantment. I have often
wondered who navigates the ship during that sacred hour, or, indeed, if
anybody navigates it at all. Perhaps that time is sacred to the genii of
the old East, who close all prying mortal eyes, but in return lend a
guiding hand to the most pressing of mortal affairs. The deck of the
ship is a curious sight between the hours of half-past one and three. The
tropical siesta requires no couching of the form. You sit down in your
chair, with a book--you fade slowly