sundown. The passage through the Canal takes about
two days, as the rate of progress is necessarily slow
to avoid washing down the banks, and there are frequent
stoppages.
Suez is a larger town and much older than Port Said,
hut its inhabitants depend almost entirely on the few
residents connected with the Canal and Railway te
Alexandria, and the pilgrims who land here on their way
to Mecca and Medina, the birthplace and tomb of their
Prophet. After leaving Suez the climate becomes hotter
ARAB DHOW.
every day. The coast-line is hacked by barren looking
copper-coloured mountains, and the air smells hot and
dry, like that of the greenhouse devoted to the cactus
family at Kew. Two or three steamers with pilgrims on
hoard for Suez were seen.
Among the visitors from the coast were great brown
locusts, a humming-bird hawk moth, and one or two
small birds. A quail flew on board, and flitted about
the deck for two or three days. Another little bird, as
elegantly shaped as a lark, stayed on board for several
days; it was brown in colour, with almost black wingtips
; it had a band of white just above the tail, and this,
gave the bird a characteristic appearance, especially
during its jerky red-cap like flight.
We went into Aden, and I never felt the heat so much,
anywhere before or since. It is a huge Dutch oven of
sunburnt rocks without a sign of vegetation as seen from
the harbour. It is astonishing how soon one begins to
take a personal interest in a ship on which a long voyage-,
has to be made. The second mate was the skipper of a
China trader, and tells me of the palmy days before-
the Canal was opened, and when freights were £1%
a ton. One of the quartermasters was an ex-royal
yachtsman, a civil and obliging old fellow, with a sharp
eye for grog. One of the stewards has been a photographer,
and another is a hairdresser rather a luxury
to have aboard ship. The old Welsh stewardess was a.
character, with nightly tendencies towards hot rum and
water and old superstitious stories of the sea. Thecaptain
is a fat, red-whiskered old sea-dog, who
knows aH about everything, but evidently never enjoyed
an introduction to Mr. Lindley Murray in his youth-
His politics are peculiar, and his motto appears to
be that of the ultra radicals, “ Down with everything,
what’s up.”
Penang was our next stopping-place, and we got.
ashore for two days, and enjoyed a walk around the
town and a ride to the “ Falls ” and the “ Hill. Two
days afterwards we stepped on to the Pile wharf at.
Tanjong Paggar or the “ fenced cape ” at Singapore,
and our experiences of the tropics really began. The-
voyage for two days down the Straits of Malacca had
been very pleasant, and we thoroughly enjoyed the
smooth blue sea and clear sky, flecked now and then by
tiny fleets of junks with their mat sails of a soft golden