Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/32

20 I meant this to be a very long letter, but this pen, faint yet pursuing, shows signs of giving out. I have to shake it every second word now.

The bugle has gone for lunch, and G., who has been sound asleep for the last hour, is uncoiling herself preparatory to going down.

So good-bye.

S.S. Scotia, Nov..

. . . day we have glided through the Canal. Imagine a shining band of silver water, a band of deepest blue sky, and in between a bar of fine gold which is the desert—and you have some idea of what I am looking at. Sometimes an Arab passes riding on a camel, and I can't get away from the feeling that I am a child again looking at a highly coloured Bible picture-book on Sabbath afternoons.

We landed at Port Said yesterday morning. People told us it was a dirty place, an uninteresting place, a horribly dull place, not worth leaving the ship to see, but it was our first glimpse of the East and we were enchanted. The narrow streets, the white domes and minarets against the blue sky,