“Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.”

The voyage from Malta to Port Said was accomplished without any notable event, except that the heat goes on steadily increasing.

August 31st, to-day, we made the low-lying land in the neighbourhood of Port Said, and by noon had arrived and moored off that uninteresting town. Coaling at Port Said is effected with great rapidity, for ships have to be speedily pushed on through the Canal to prevent a block, thus, by the following afternoon, we commenced our first stage of the Canal passage, under the escort of one of the Company’s steam tugs, for ships of our size may not use their own engines for fear of the “wash” abrading the sandy banks.

The character of the scenery soon changes, and we seem to have an intuitive perception that we are in the land of the Pharaohs. On the one side, far as the eye can reach, and for hundreds of miles beyond, a desert of glistening sand is spread before us, for the most part level and unbroken, but occasionally interrupted by billow-like undulations, resembling the ground swell at sea. Here and there a salt pond breaks the monotonous ochre of the sand. These ponds are, in the majority of cases, quite dry, and encrusted with a beautiful crystalline whiteness resembling snow, making even the desert look interesting. On the Egyptian side, a series of gem-studded lagoons stretch away to the haze of an indistinct horizon, the mirage reproducing the green and gold of the thousand isles in the highly heated atmosphere.

By 6 p.m. we had reached the first station, or “Gare,” when we brought up alongside a jetty for the night. When darkness had set in, the wild melancholy howl of the jackal was borne across the desert by the evening breeze, a sound sufficiently startling and inexplicable if you don’t happen to know its origin. What these animals can find to eat in a parching desert is, and remains to me, a mystery.

On pushing on the following morning, a quail and several locusts flew on board; interesting because we are now in the region of Scripture natural history. As I was desirous of procuring a specimen of the Scriptural locust, I expressed a wish to that effect, and soon had more of them than I knew what to do with, till, in fact, I thought the Egyptian plague was about to be exemplified. I will here take occasion to thank my shipmates for their kindly and ready assistance, in helping me to furnish a cabinet with natural history specimens. Nothing living, coming within their reach, has ever escaped them; birds, insects, fish, reptiles, all have been laid as trophies before me to undergo that metamorphosis known as “bottling.” I verily believe that had an elephant insinuated himself across their path, he would have found his way into my “preserves.”

This was an extremely quiet day, everybody indulging a siesta under double and curtained awnings, until about 5 p.m., when bump! a dead stop, and a list to port. We are aground. But grounding on such a soft bed is not a serious affair, and by extra exertions on the part of “Robert,” our tug, and a turn or two of our own screws, we were soon in deep water again. This was but the initiation ceremony; ere the termination of our commission we were destined to become passed masters in the art of bumping, as the sequel will show.

At this juncture the Canal ceases to be such, as it enters that natural watercourse the Bitter Lakes. Herein, we are at perfect liberty to use our own engines, whereby we are speedily across their glassy surface, and entering on to the last portion of the passage. On rounding a point on the opposite side, a scene, truly Biblical, met our view two Arab maidens tending their flocks. Perhaps they had taken advantage of the absence of man to uncover their faces; if so, they were speedily careful to rectify the error, on catching sight of such terrible beings as bluejackets; but not before we had caught a glimpse at a rather pleasing face, with small, straight nose, rosy lips, splendid teeth, the blackest of eyes, and the brownest of skin. The veils, which serve to hide their prettiness, are real works of art, composed of gold and silver coins, beads and shells, tastefully and geometrically arranged on a groundwork of black lace. After repeated hand kissing from our amorous tars an action whose significance is apparently lost on these damsels we bid good bye to the “nut-brown maids,” and at 5 p.m., on September 4th, enter the broad waters of the Gulf of Suez.

The great feature of the town of Suez is its donkeys; wonderfully knowing creatures, who, with their masters, look upon every visitor, as in duty bound, to engage their services. To say them nay, and to suggest that your legs are quite capable of bearing you to the town, is only provocative of an incredulous smile, or a negative shake of the head. Never was seen such patience and importunity as that displayed by boy and beast. The most striking thing about them is their names shared in common which furnish one with a running commentary on current events in Europe. For example, there were the “Prince of Wales” and “Roger Tichborne,” “Mrs. Besant” and the “Fruits of Philosophy”! The “mokes” are so well trained or is it that they have traversed the same ground so often? that, in spite of all tugging at the reins, and the administration of thundering applications of your heel in the abdominal region, they will insist upon conducting you to a locality well understood, but of no very pronounced respectability. I did hear but this between you and I that a rather too confiding naval chaplain, on one occasion, trusted himself to the guidance of one of these perfidious beasts, and even the sanctity of his cloth, could not save him from the same fate.

September 7th. We may now be said to have entered upon the saddest and most unpleasant part of the voyage, that of the Red Sea passage.

The day after sailing, the look-out from the mast head reported a vessel aground off the starboard bow, with a second vessel close by, and, seemingly, in a similar predicament. Our thoughts at once adverted to the two troopships which left last night, so we hurried on, and, arriving at the spot, found we had surmised correctly. One only, the steamer, was aground; her consort, the sailing ship, being at anchor a safe distance off. We lost no time in sending hawsers on board, but it was not until the third day that we were successful in our efforts to haul her off.

Our voyage resumed, we had scarcely got out of sight of the two ships, when the sudden cry of “man overboard!” was heard above the din of flapping canvas and creaking blocks. To stop the engines, gather in the upper sails, let fly sheets, and back the main yard, was the work of seconds; and before the ship was well around smart as she was on her heel, too the life-boat was half-way on her errand of mercy. Young Moxey was soon amongst us again, none the worse for his involuntary immersion, although his bath was more than an ordinary risky one, owing to the proximity of sharks.

From that exalted observatory, the mast head, we noticed the red colour from which the sea derives its name. The surface has not a general ruddy tinge, as we most of us thought it had, only here and there blood-red patches appear, mottling the vivid blue surface.

September 11th. My “journal” is a blank for three whole days, owing to the intense heat, which is simply unbearable. I can only give our friends a faint idea of what it was like, by asking them to imagine themselves strapped down over a heated oven whilst somebody has built a fire on top of them, to ensure a judicious “browning” on both sides alike. Sleep is out of the question, “prickly heat” is careful of that. As may be supposed, the sufferings of the deck hands bad enough as in all conscience it was were not to be compared with the tortures endured by the poor fellows in the stoke-hole, who had to be hoisted up in buckets that they might gasp in the scarcely less hot air on deck. From bad, this state of things came to worse men succumbed to its influence, the sick list swelled, and, finally, death stalked insidiously in our midst.

September 13th. The first victim was John Bayley, a marine, who died to-day after an illness of only a few short hours. One curious thing about this sickness is that those attacked by it exhibit, more or less, symptoms of madness. One of my own messmates, for instance, whose life was preserved by a miracle, almost went entirely out of his mind. I will not dwell too long upon these sufferings, nor rekindle the harrowing scenes in your minds.

At sunset on the 14th the bell tolled for a funeral, as, with half-masted flag, and officers and men assembled, we prepared to do the last that ever poor Bayley would require from man. Funerals are solemn things at any time, but a funeral at sea is more than this it is impressive and awe-inspiring, especially if there be others so near death’s door that one does not know whose turn it may be next. Decently and in order the hammock-clad form is brought to the gangway, whilst the chaplain’s voice, clear and distinct more distinct than ordinary it seems reads the beautiful service for the Church of England’s dead. A hollow plunge, a few eddying circles, at the words “we commit his body to the deep” and he is gone for ever.

Almost simultaneously with departure of one, another of our shipmates, Mr. Easton, the gunner, died.

Providentially for all of us, a squall of wind struck us at this point of our voyage a squall of such violence, whilst it lasted, that the air was thoroughly purged of its baneful qualities, and restored again to its elasticity.

But what a God-send it was! The iron hull of our ship, always unpleasantly hot in these latitudes, was rapidly cooled by the deluge of rain which came with the wind. Renewed life and vigour entered into our emaciated frames, and revivified men marked for death; and was it not delicious to rush about naked in the puddles of rain on the upper deck!

Well, all things mundane have an end, even the most unpleasant though it must be confessed their finality is generally lingering. Thus our desolate voyage through that seething cauldron, known to geographers and schoolboys as the Red Sea, at length approached its termination.

Our grim shipmate, death, did not go over the side till he had marked yet another victim for his insatiate grasp; for, to-day, Mr. Scoble, one of our engineers, died. He, too, was buried at sea, though we were only a few hours from port. On the morn of this day, September 17th, we passed the strait of Bab-el-mandeb Arabic for “Gate of Tears” an extremely appropriate name, too, I should think.

Aden, which we reached the same evening, has a very bleak and barren appearance, and is, seemingly, nothing better than a volcanic rock. Its apparent sterility does not, as a matter of fact, exist; for it produces an abundance of vegetables of all kinds, splendid corn with stalks above the ordinary height, fruits, roses, and other delightful and highly-scented flowers, in rank abundance. There is something thriving and go-a-head about the place, in spite of unkindly nature. It has one terrible drawback, for rain falls only at intervals of years, sometimes taking a holiday for three or even more years. The people are busy and bustling troops of camels, donkeys, and ostriches continually stream in and out the town, testifying to an extensive trade with the neighbouring states. A peculiar race of people is found here, the Soumali tall, gaunt-looking fellows, with a mass of moppy hair dyed a brilliant red. This head-gear, surmounting a small black face, is laughable in the extreme. Plenty of ostrich feathers may be obtained of the Arabian Jews; and though, of course, you pay sailors’ prices for them, yet even then the sums given are not nearly so much as would be charged in England for a far inferior feather.

On the eve of departure we were visited by a novel shower, composed of sand and locusts, from the African desert. These things, unpleasant as they seem to us, are, we are told, of as common occurrence here as rain showers at home.