deck was Sir A. H. Layard, who has a house in Venice, and who was seeing off another old friend of mine, Sir W. Gregory, formerly Member for Galway, and more recently Governor of Ceylon. We had likewise on board Mr. Rowsell, once head of the Contract Department at the Admiralty, and now one of the Commissioners of the State Lands in Egypt, with his family; and I soon found out among the passengers several gentlemen connected with Eastern commerce whose reputation and firms I knew. The Mongolia was very high in the water, and as we "slowed" down the Lido passage into the Adriatic, I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful of their kind as the varied views of Venice from the sea. By nightfall we were off Ancona, burning blue lights on the port bow ; and so calm was the sometimes stormy gulf that by I a.m. on Sunday we were standing in and out at Brindisi, waiting for the pilot, who was in bed. The ship is manned chiefly by natives of the East, who go under the general designation of Lascars, most of whom come from the islands and headlands to the north of

ON THE ADRIATIC.

5

Bombay, and we have a considerable number of passengers on board for Australia. The Rev. Mr. Mitchell, of Sydney, conducted divine serIvice in the saloon after we had finished the dirty operation of coaling. I never saw a more squalid, filthy, rickety-looking place than the ancient Brundusium; but it has a good harbour, and probably at some future time it will be more inviting to the traveller.

At 2 o'clock on Monday morning the train came in, wearied railway passengers rushed into the cabins, and very soon heavy rolling warned me that we were once more on the Adriatic. When I went on deck in the morning, Otranto, on the Italian coast, was in full view, and opposite, crowned with snow, appeared the lofty mountains of Albania. Passing Cape Matapan, distinctly visible though thirty miles off, we had run 289 miles at noon, and until we got under the lee of Crete the good ship plunged so much that many of the passengers were sick for four or five hours.

Wednesday was a lovely day, and when I reached the deck at sunrise on Thursday, in

the lurid light on the eastern horizon there could be plainly seen a dim object familiar to me-the Pharos of Alexandria. The usual din and scramble took place when the steamer stopped in the inner harbour; but we did not require to land in boats, as the P. and O. Company have now got a wharf, and the railway carriages come down to the steamer's side. For an additional payment of £1 each, we shared with others a large saloon carriage, and regretfully saying good-bye to the Mongolia, were soon passing between Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudich Canal, among fields of cotton, maize, rice, and reeds; camels, buffaloes, and naked Arabs reminding us of former times.

This is Thursday, 17th November, 1881, and on the same day of the week and month in 1869 was opened the Suez Canal-a monument of French enterprise and sagacity which England's short-sighted statesmen had so long and so foolishly opposed.

The rascals charged us four shillings each for a very so-so lunch at Kafr Zayad, and we were not sorry when the hot and dusty journey

TO SUEZ By Rail.

7

terminated at Suez at 9 p.m., and we were ushered into the saloon of the steamship Surat, Captain Breeze, 3,142 tons, where all that the P. and O. Company could provide for weary and hungry passengers was a supper of very bad and tough cold meat.

The luncheons of that generous corporation are cold; and although the order, and especially the cleanliness, on board are all that can be desired, a company that charge so high and enjoy so large a subsidy from Government should supply better fare and provide faster steamers. There is nothing to prevent the service between London and Bombay being shortened by at least three days.

The Surat, although she performed admirably while we were on board, has been rather an unfortunate ship, and has met with a good many mishaps. In 1875 we saw her disabled and being towed in the Suez Canal, and this voyage her engines stopped five times in the Bay of Biscay, so alarming the passengers that they applied to the captain of the port and Lord Napier of Magdala at Gibraltar for an

independent examination of the machinery, greatly to the indignation of the chief engineer and of the captain. We consequently found by no means a happy family on board, and we heard much of their experiences and grievances during the passage.

Next day we were going thirteen knots with a fresh northerly breeze between the magnificent serrated peaks which hide Sinai from view, and the almost equally striking mountains on the African coast. We met six steamers going up to Suez. The ship is full, there being 130 first-class passengers, whose easy-chairs cover the quarter-deck.

Passing Shadwan Island, where the P. and O. steamship Carnatic was lost, we leave the Gulf of Suez, and, seeing the entrance to the Gulf of Akaba on the left, pass into the Red Sea, or, as it should be called, the Sea of Sea-weed, the Hebrew word for the two being the same. A wreck standing well out of the water reminds us of the dangers of its navigation. The mountains on both sides are much grander than I imagined, and, as we proceed, those on the