Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/40

22 hells and sailors' bagnios, and what matters? In a few hours we shall have discharged our Egyptian consignments, and taken our India-bound cargo, and away we shall have steamed southward into that curious maritime ditch that has been dug in the desert to correct the "second thoughts" of Nature ill-inspired, and to reconstitute the conditions of an infinitely distant geological past.

And what a wonderful ditch it is! More wonderful, perhaps, than ever now that, thanks to the ingenuities of modern science, it is navigable by night as well as by day. Before the age of electricity, the on-coming of darkness meant the arrest of navigation, and the canal after nightfall was tenanted only by moored and motionless ships. But now, with the dazzling rays of the search-light streaming from our bows, and throwing its broad, fan-shaped patch of radiance on the dark waters ahead of us, we can steam steadily on. Five miles an hour is not exactly what you would call good running