IOUS GANG-PLANKS. D'ARCY STRANDED. GUIDES WHO CANNOT GUIDE. A
HEATED ARGUMENT

Next morning we were disturbed early, and rolled up our kits ready for
disembarkation.

About 7 A.M. we pulled alongside the wharf, and a light-hearted,
jostling crowd struggled for the gang-plank.

I have not yet been able to find out why gang-planks are made so
narrow, so that only one person at a time dare undertake the passage.

Chaos seemed to prevail. The deck suddenly became a struggling mass of
humanity, struggling, tugging, and dragging at valises and kit bags.

Officers were manfully shouldering their "marching order," and
struggling with their valises, hoping that their turn would come to
find a footing on the gang-plank.

The gang-plank was long and narrow, bending and squeaking under its
burden. There were two gang-planks: one to go down and one to come
up.

But we were not sailors, and did not know the system; the inevitable
result being that those going up met those coming down, until they
became an unwieldy medley of men, baggage, protests, and apologies.

Gang-planks at the best of times appear structures of absurdity. They
either appear to be placed at an angle so dangerous that the only safe
way of getting ashore appears to be to sit down and slide. At other
times the gang-plank has an unhappy knack of sagging in a precarious
manner as you approach the middle, while a couple of sailors hold
desperately on to the end to prevent its slipping off the dock.

Here we reported to the landing officer, who was making frantic
endeavours to create order from chaos.

In circumstances of this kind the best thing to do with the landing
officer is to keep clear of him. So we seized the only hack available
and drove to one of the leading hotels, which had the reputation of
being popular.

I am not quite sure if these conveyances are called hacks, but the
name seems very appropriate; for carriage seems too dignified a term
for such dilapidated vehicles.

We were, however, too glad to get away as rapidly as possible from the
dusty deck, and it was already getting very hot.

Turning into one of the side streets, we beheld the immortal Septimus,
looking like one who is hopelessly lost in the middle of the Sahara
Desert.

Now Septimus was not a born soldier, and he had made no attempt to
carry his equipment on his back; neither would it seem right for
Septimus to carry any greater burden on his podgy form than his
well-pol