hour’s talk to you all every day, and it is such a
pleasure to look at you.”
ii.
“ Arrived here safe and well at nine o’clock yesterday,”
he wrote from Singapore, the 17th of September,
1881. “ Do you think a chapter on my voyage out,
with short sketches of Naples, Port Said, Aden,
Galles, and Singapore would be any use ? I t would do
to begin my book with, at any rate.1
“ I went on shore at Ceylon and had a drive about
the country. Cocoanut palms were growing every-
1 In a memorandum-book that eventually came home in his boxes I
find some rough memoranda for his book, in diary form. The following
are a few of these notes intended for use in a chapter on the voyage
o u t:—Port Said, August 28 : Intense heat; engage boats ; fellow
spoke English; landed j Seyd Ali offered his services. Seyd was
dressed in a purple robe reaching to his feet. Eather handsome. He
wore a Turkish fez and first-rate English boating boots. His charge
was one shilling an hour. Seyd : “ Will de gentlemen go post office? ”
“ Ho, take us to the Arab town.” A walk of about fifteen minutes
along the sandy streets of Port Said. The Bue de Commerce, quite
destitute of vehicles, brought us to the Arab town. Visit the Mosque,
which smells terribly. Then walk up the back streets of the Arab
town. People lying at their doors, too lazy to brush away a fly from
their faces. Arrive at the market-place. Feast day. Swings with
three Arab girls ; very picturesque in yellow head-dresses. Men selling
melons. Carrying water in pig-skins. Walk back. Turkish soldiers.
Visit the Café Chantant. Palpable force of assumed gaiety. Female
band of scowling women. The gambling, rouge et noir. Mem.—Enlarge
on the assumed air of gaiety, the selling of indecent photos, &c.
—Suez Canal, August 28 : 104° in the shade. Old Egyptian reeds.
Immense banks of sand. Blue jelly-fish. Ismalia—green desert city.
Beautiful flowers—asters. Scrub on the banks. Water, yellow to
bright green. Temperature while going on second day—cabin, 103°;
under the awnings, 110°; and 50° C. in sun. The ship. The com-
missaire, a curious burlesque Frenchman. “ A h ! I do not know; you
must ask the Agent des Postes; it is not in my department.” The
where, each tree being loaded with fruit. Bananas,
nutmegs, and pine-apples grow by the roadside. The
country is very charming and very damp, as the
rainy season is now at its worst. In Singapore, however,
the weather is very good- I t rained yesterday a
little and cooled the air. The temperature is about
80° to 82° in the shade during the day, sinking to 75°
in early morning and midnight. Mr. Bead lives about
two miles out of Singapore, and his house is surrounded
by tropical gardens full of tree-ferns, palms, bamboos,
travellers’ trees, as under :—
“ I t is not a first-rate garden, either. The great
drawback is the grass, which is very coarse. Singapore
is the nicest town I have seen yet.
“ All the people have gone to Borneo—the engineer,
Captain : “ Ab, ze piano (P. and O.) is very bad.” General: “ But
surely there cannot be two pianos?” Captain: “ Ah, no, ze
P 2