Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/453

 all of them in love with one sweet young man, and they hold his hand on deck. The other passengers look at them in astonishment, if not disgust. Americans are said to be "loud." I don't believe they are half as bad as they are reported to be. A German ship captain once said to me: "The Americans are, as a rule, our best behaved passengers, followed by the Germans. The worst behaved are the English." In the traveling I have done, I have seen few "loud" Americans, but I have seen many "loud" English. And it is the English who criticise us most.

—We have seen no land since leaving Port Said, except that we passed the island of Crete. Some say we passed it last evening, and some say we passed it this morning: it has been pointed out to me twice, and both sights of it were very hazy Ships are not seen as frequently in the Mediterranean as in the Red Sea; we have seen but one steamship in two days—a big P. & O. liner en route to India. On the Red Sea, a half-dozen were frequently in sight at one time. The explanation is that the Mediterranean is wide, and ships keep a considerable distance from each other, whereas the Red Sea is often almost as narrow as a river There are two women on board from Johannesburg, but they did not know each other there; indeed, they had never heard of each other before coming on board. Each says of the other: "I cannot imagine who she can be." When a German leaves the ship's table, he