Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/448

 *out putting coverings on our feet. Everywhere we heard exploding fire-crackers; today is some sort of Mohammedan festival We received a lot of mail from home; the first in more than four months. After getting our mail, we lost interest in Port Said, and went back to the ship to read our letters. We found these so interesting that at 10:30, when the "Burgermeister" left for Naples, we barely glanced at the famous statue to Ferdinand de Lesseps which adorns the entrance to the canal.

—We are approaching the Blessed Country of Bad Weather again. This morning the sky is as threatening as it is on the morning when you give a picnic, and when you wish it would do one thing or the other. No country can amount to much without bad weather: the trouble with Africa and Arizona is too much fine weather The Meriterranean, which we all dreaded, was as smooth last night as a millpond, and shows no disposition today to change its pacific character The first thing you think of, on boarding a ship, is that funny people travel. We meet a few nice, normal, sane people, but most of them are freaks. On every ship we meet the foolish son of a rich man, who is allowed to travel to keep him away from home. The woman traveler is nearly always peculiar; she is usually an old widow with money, and as ugly as she is cranky. There is a professional traveler always met with who has no sense, and very little politeness, but he has been