LITMIR.BIZ

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a piece of tapestry, representing camels, palm-trees, mosques and the like, which the native vendor assured me was handmade in Egyptian prisons, though in my heart of hearts I knew better; also brooches and bracelets which seemed dirt cheap at two and three shillings apiece, the exact counterparts of which I afterwards bought at William Whiteley's for sixpence ha'penny. As soon after breakfast as we could get our letters ready, I was rowed through the jewel-bright water into the world of fairy tales. Oh, I know what Port Said is to those familiar with it, and I could have seen for myself, had I wished to see, that the Gorgeous East could be flimsy and tawdry, even ugly, here and there; but it was the East, and that was enough; the glamour of the rosy spectacles beautified all. Nothing was easier than to forget and ignore what would doubtless be impossible to overlook on a second visit, and impossible to put up with on a third or fourth.

      Having arrived at the centre of things, we appointed an hour for luncheon at the Hotel Continental, and split our party into twos and threes. An unattached man took charge of me and another unattached lady, and escorted us about the town and to the shops which alone attracted her (for she knew Port Said already). Wonderful shops, too, some of them were, and it was no wasted time I spent roaming about them, while she gave her attention to spangled scarves and lace; but the lattice-veiled windows of the mysterious dwelling-rooms above them, and the flowing and glowing life of the narrow streets, were what I had come to see. It was delightful to return to the pavement under the Continental, and there sit, with a cold and bubbling lemon drink, in one of the low chairs which so hospitably invite the wayfarer, to watch the stream of mingling East and West go by, and its eddies around one – the veiled native lady touching skirts with the breezy English girl; the turbaned sherbet seller, his remarkable brazen ewer under his arm, dodging the swift bicycle; the oily-eyed and sodden rapscallion of the Levant, or the bejewelled and bepowdered person no better than she should be, elbowing the spare young cleric slipping through these dangerous places on his way to the Pan-Anglican Congress. And the stranger contrasts on the wide, tiled side-walk, a continuous outdoor café rather than a promenade – Frenchmen playing dominoes, swarthy traders doing secret business over their drinks; passengers from the various ships in port, mothers and aunts with children by the hand; here and there the habitual tourist, easily identified; here and there the impeccably clothed, clean-limbed white figure, whose high bearing and bluff dignity proclaimed the important person – soldier of distinction, big-game-hunting lord of leisure, powerful Government official, as the case might be. All up and down, around the low tables, faces of all nations, speech of all languages, and, as an undercurrent, the incessantly made gentle appeal for notice from the dark-skinned pedlars sinuously navigating the narrow channels between the chairs, with their cheap jewellery and picture post-cards and puzzle walking-sticks, trying how far they could go under the eye of the Egyptian policeman, standing ready to order them over the curb at the first sign of unwelcome pertinacity.

      For a good half-hour we sat at ease, in the middle of this picture, and I enjoyed myself surpassingly. Then a little more shopping on behalf of my still unsatisfied lady companion, and then the gathering of the whole seven of our landing party at the appointed rendezvous for luncheon. We were ready for the meal, and it was not the least memorable of the æsthetic pleasures of that "Sunday out." I am told it was simply as a meal ashore, after many meals at sea, that I found it so delectable, but in justice to the courteous French proprietor, as he seemed to be, who himself took charge of our table, and for my own credit as a connoisseur, I deny that assertion, made only by those who were not there. I declare, on my honour, that, apart from the good cookery, the bread, butter and beer of the Hotel Continental at Port Said – such a seemingly unlikely place in which to find them so – were the best I ever tasted. Particularly the bread. One of the remaining ambitions of my life is to find out whether that bread was French, or Egyptian, or Turkish, or what (the reader bears in mind that this is the story of an innocent abroad), and to get some more of it, if possible.

      We sat outside the house again, to repose after our repast, and I should think there was no more contented person in the world than I was then. I bought a little more Brummagem rubbish that palmed itself off as of Oriental manufacture, of the softly persistent pedlars circulating about my chair; and our escort settled the hotel bill, which worked out at four-and-sixpence for each of us. Never did I grudge hard-earned money for sensual indulgence less. I would not now take pounds for my recollections of that meal, because the day could not have been perfect without it.

      So it drew on for four o'clock, when leave expired. Tired, hot and happy, we wandered back to the quay, dropped our threepenny pieces into official hands before the tantalised boatmen, stepped into our cushioned barge and were rowed to the ship. There we found coaling done, afternoon tea prepared for us, everything ready for the start. And, again in the decline of the brilliant day, we saw the whole place bathed in celestially rosy light, a last impression of the gorgeous East as one loves to imagine it, to be hung on the line of the picture gallery of memory alongside Aden and Suez. Because decks were being washed down, the captain allowed a few of us to survey the scene from his bridge, and while we rested weary bones we gazed from that commanding altitude upon the unforgettable panorama – the houses of the sea-front, the casino, the famous lighthouse, the bathing-beach with its white surf and its machines, the long breakwater walling the exit from the canal, and – farewelling us, as it seemed – the impressive statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, pointing back to his great work. At sunset we fetched up the coats so long unworn, and in the fresh air of the Mediterranean watched the flushing and fading of the distant city, low on the water like another Venice, until the evening bugle called us down. Too tired to dress, we ate our dinner perfunctorily, took a last look at the spacious, cool-breathing night, saw the Damietta light twinkling, and went to bed early. No one so much as mentioned church.

      Then came three quiet days, sunny and cool, in which the right thing to do was to lie on one's long chair and recover from excitements. Meditation was so sweet, and I was so grateful to Port Said, that I could not grumble at losing Malta, where the ship had no engagements. A far-off, faint reflection of what was supposed to be a flashlight in Valetta harbour consoled me on my way to bed one night with its suggestion that Templars really lived, and that the old cathedral and the old steep streets were still there, awaiting the future pilgrim. No more did I set foot in "foreign parts," but what I further saw of them sufficed to make each remaining day of the voyage memorable. "The Bay of Tunis," says the captain, and: "Old Carthage lies behind that hill."

      We were so close to the African shore that we could see the occasional town, the lonely farm, the lonelier fort or monastery, very distinctly; and the little unfenced, unshaped patches of tillage scratched out of the wilderness, and the little roadways meandering through the gaps of the crowding rock-ranges, otherwise so savagely desolate; and the evening lights sparsely scattered along the shore, and the early morning camp-fires on the seaward declivities, so high up and isolated as to suggest the fastnesses of the pirates of bygone days. A horn of the Bay of Algiers stole out of twilight mist, and lit up its clustering lamps as we looked at it; and the following day revealed the face of Spain, frowning at her vis-à-vis, but splendid in a stormy sunset, a velvety violet mass against a flaming sky.

      At four o'clock again on Sunday morning I was up and dressed, summoned by the captain stamping overhead. And out of the dawn came majestic Gibraltar – the sun was up before five – and Algeciras of recent fame, ships and warships, hills, houses, hamlets, windmills, roads and Tarifa Point transfixing a wrecked steamer, sad detail of a picture full of life and charm. Another red-letter Sunday, but not quite so red as the last. Divine service was duly celebrated in the saloon after dinner – our last on board.

      The captain stamped again at five A.M. on Monday, and I saw the Castle of Cintra on its rocky headland, and more of the interesting life of the country as we slid along its shores. I cut breakfast short to feast on the historic landscape (in youth I had devoured the literature of the Cid, the Peninsular War, and Don Quixote, in a score of weighty tomes), to study the contours of Spanish houses, to count the number of visible Spanish windmills, all twirling their sails for business, in the good old Mediæval style. Until the sailors at their work of holystoning and sluicing drove us from the last inch of deck, and rain – almost the only rain we had on that blessed voyage – drew a grey curtain over the scene.

      The Bay of Biscay was an angel. Summer-blue sea and sky, blushing gloriously when sunset interfused them, a young horned moon, with its attendant

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