Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/444

 —We reached Suez at 1:30 this afternoon, after a chilly ride through the narrow end of the Red Sea, which is known as the Gulf of Suez. All morning, land was in sight on both sides, and lighthouses on lonely islands were frequent. At 3 o'clock this morning we passed Mount Sinai. I have asked about half the passengers what happened on Mount Sinai to make it famous, and they don't know Three hours before reaching Suez we saw a steamship that had gone ashore during the night. Another vessel was assisting it, and we did not stop We had a long wait at Suez before being admitted to the canal. The port doctor, a woman, amused us by coming on board, and marshaling us in the music-room for inspection. As our names were called, we walked past the doctor, and she looked at us in a manner intended to be searching. I was called out as "Herr Howe," while Adelaide answered to "Fraulein Howe." We had a scheme to go to Cairo by special train from Suez, and rejoin the ship at Port Said, but the authorities would not let us land, owing to our taking on a dozen or more Arab firemen at Aden, where there is plague. But dozens of Egyptians surrounded the ship, in little boats, and offered us all sorts of articles, which they sent up for our inspection in baskets. One ship went into the canal ahead of us, having been waiting longer, and a dozen or more boats came out carrying mud from the canal dredgers. Finally a launch appeared, bringing the long-expected pilot, and at 5:30 we steamed slowly into the canal, passing within a few hundred feet of the main streets of Suez. In an hour, we passed two freight