Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/386

 *gers. The mother made a drink in the following manner: A little condensed milk was poured into a dirty wash-*basin nearly full of water. Sugar was added, and this beverage was passed about, and drank with a relish. One member of the family was a girl of fourteen, rather pretty, but dirty beyond description. A boy of eleven was also very good-looking. The mother, after dinner, lit a cigarette, and handed it occasionally to her husband, who took a few puffs, and handed it back to his wife Speaking of smoking cigarettes, last evening Adelaide and I sat with a party on deck to drink coffee after dinner. There were five ladies in the party, and Adelaide was the only one who did not smoke a cigarette with the coffee The poorer class of Hindus seem to be the laziest class of people in the world; the poverty of the people of India is due more to shiftlessness than to British oppression The weather has been superb all day, and land in sight nearly all the time.

—Shortly after breakfast this morning, we went ashore at the old Portuguese town of Mozambique, and wandered about until the big ship whistle warned us, at 1, to go on board. When we went down the ship's side to enter the small boats which carry passengers ashore at a shilling each, we were mobbed by the Arab boatmen, who were quarreling over our patronage. They fought viciously, and many of them fell into the sea, but we had had no excitement for several days, and rather liked the commo