Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/433

 somewhere in the interior, trying to make a fortune. The little girl's mother arrived in Dar-es-Salaam only a week before her death. Now the child is very ill, and it is not believed she will live to reach her friends in Germany. The women passengers are doing all they can for the child, but she cries almost constantly for her mother, and not much can be done for her.

—This morning at 11 o'clock we entered the Red Sea, through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb. The straits are about ten miles wide, and are made narrower at the entrance to the Red Sea by Perim Island, which the English have fortified. On our right, Asia; on the left, Africa,—two continents in sight. The Red Sea is a great highway for ships since the completion of the Suez Canal; ships for India, China, Japan, Ceylon, Australia and Africa now pass this way. From 7 o'clock this morning until 3 we passed fourteen ships: six were in sight at one time. Most of them passed us so closely that we could read their names All over the world, you hear how terribly hot and disagreeable a passage through the Red Sea is. I have been through it twice, and both voyages were cool and pleasant. Ask anyone who has been through the Red Sea, and he will tell you he had a pleasant voyage, but those who have not made the trip, say it is dreadful. If you have a head wind, they say, the voyage is endurable, but if you have a following wind,—well, passengers can't stand it, and beg the captain to run the other way for a time, and give them