Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/398

364 chose one some way down; but the captain asked me to move up to the seat of honour on his right hand, and I felt quite at a loss to account for the distinction, because not a soul on board knew anything about me. I did not find the captain, though, a bad companion. He was a short, fat, dark, brisk little man. Just the sort of man a captain and a sailor should be. I am glad to say he had not the slightest idea of being unduly attentive. The conversation was dull at table. The ladies talked chiefly about Colonel "This" and Captain "That," peppering their conversation with an occasional Hindustani word, a spice of Anglo-Indian gossip, and plentiful regimentalisms, such as "griffin," "tiffen," "the Staff," and "gymkhana," all of which was Greek to me.

Take it all round, the six days' passage was not so bad. I particularly admired the coast of Sicily, the mountains rising one above another, Etna smoking in the distance, the sea like glass, and the air adding a sensuous charm, a soft, balmy breeze like the Arabian seas. Yet, as I had been spoiled by Brazilian scenery, I did not go into the same ecstasies over it as my fellow-passengers. We spent Christmas Eve as our last night on board. In the evening we went in for snapdragon and other festivities of the season, and tried to be as merry as we could. The ship could not go into the harbour of Alexandria at night; it has a dangerous entrance; so we sent up our rockets and blue-lights, and remained outside the lighthouse till dawn.

On Christmas Day morning I first set my toot on Eastern ground. We steamed into the harbour of