t range of mountains across there, which look strangely like ruined
forts and castles, forms part of the great peninsula of Sinai where the
Law was given to Moses, and though it is in Asia it now belongs to
Egypt. It looks as if you could hit it with a stone, so wonderfully do
distant objects stand out in this clear atmosphere, but it is seven or
eight miles away. That dark clump midway between it and the sea marks
the place called Moses' Well.

We are in the Gulf of Suez now, and it must have been somewhere about
here that the Israelites crossed over with the host of Pharaoh pursuing
them.

We are getting up better speed, and it is not long before we have
reached the end of the gulf and pass out into the wide waters of the Red
Sea.

There were two delusions I cherished for many a year about this sea. I
always imagined it a long, narrow strip, like a river, in which you
could see from bank to bank as you sailed along; and secondly, I thought
there must be some red colouring on the banks or in the water to account
for the strange name. As a matter of fact, the sea is over one thousand
miles long and varies from twenty to one hundred and eighty miles in
breadth. Being on it in a ship is like being out in the open ocean, for
one can see no shore. The name "Red" Sea has never been satisfactorily
explained, but some people suggest that it may have arisen from the
spawn or eggs of fish which float on the surface in quantities at
certain times of the year and are of a reddish tinge, others say it is
from the coral which grows so well here, and others think it may have
something to do with the rocks of red porphyry on the Egyptian side of
the Arabian Gulf.

For the first time since we left England we begin now, as we go
southward, to feel uncomfortably hot. It was never too hot in Egypt, for
there was always a fresh wind. Here at first we have a following wind
which makes it seem dead calm; there is a kind of clammy dampness in the
air which makes it impossible to do anything requiring energy. The deck
games of "bull" and quoits and even cricket, which have been carried on
in such a lively way lately, fall off; no one cares to do anything.

Even the children cease from troubling. There are quite a number of them
on board, for this is an Australian ship; if she were going to India
there would be no small children. Here I counted fifteen at the table
downstairs where they have their meals. You, of course, are treated as a
g