order soda water or wine,
or are solicited for subscriptions to sports or sweepstakes. They have
the date marked on them, and you add your name, and number of berth, and
away goes your steward to the bar or wine man, and you get what you
ordered; it may be ages afterwards, when you have almost forgotten what
it was you ordered, but punctually at the end of the week, you get them
in a bundle and pay up. "I find," to quote Carlyle again, "I have a
considerable feeling of astonishment at the unexpected size of the
bundles. It's a most excellent system, and if there wasn't such a crowd
it would work out all right here."

It is uncomfortably warm now and damp. Last night we on the main deck
had to sleep with ports closed, so we had to live with very little air;
I do not know what the temperature was, not having a thermometer with
us, as we are almost amidship and near the engine, it must have been
considerable.

... The Red Sea does not grow in my affections; as we go south there is
too much of the sensation of being slowly stewed. At Babel Mandeb I
believe the temperature of the sea rises to 100 deg. F.

The islands we pass on the shore to the east, distant about fifteen
miles as I write, are interesting enough. I suppose the inhabitants are
somewhat irresponsible, and were we to land there in the boats unarmed,
might find us full occupation for the rest of our lives as slaves in
the interior. There was a ship wrecked on this coast some years ago,
and her boat's crew landed, and were either killed or are up country
slaving. R. tells me the wife of one of them lives beside his people in
Fife, which makes us feel almost in touch with the sandy shore. What an
anomaly--a modern steamship packed with western civilisation reeling off
twenty knots an hour--past a desert land of lawless nomadic Arab tribes.

[Illustration]

As we get south nearer Aden the sand spits tail out south and slope off
inland like wide glaciers, through which appear dark coloured rocky
islets.

... We had rather bad luck yesterday and to-day; the iron wind catcher
put out at our port to make a draught caught a sea, and threw it all
over our cabin. G.'s maid had just opened my overland trunk to give the
contents an airing, and now my collars are pulp and rose pink from the
lining of the collar box, so I must call on the barber who runs a shop
on board. We had the carpet taken up and our clothes hung up to dry, but
they won't, for the air is so hot an