ileh,
and the Arab and his fellow Mecca pilgrims swell the chorus with
deep-fetched sighs of "Allah, Ali Akbar!"

A narrow space is walled off with canvas for the exclusive use of the
female deck passengers, and in this enclosure scores of women and
children of the above-named nationalities are huddled together
indiscriminately for the night, packed, I should say, closer than
sardines in a tin box. Male sleepers and family groups are sprawled about
the deck in every conceivable position, and in walking from the foredeck
to the after-cabins by the ghostly glimmer of the ship's lanterns, one
has to pick his way cautiously among them. Woe to the person who attempts
this difficult feat without the aid of a good pair of sea-legs; he is
sure to be pitched head foremost by the motion of the vessel into the
bosom of some family peacefully snoozing in a promiscuous heap, or to
step on the slim, dusky figure of an Arab.

The ubiquitous Urasian who can speak "a leetle Inglis" soon betrays his
presence aboard by singling me out and proceeding to make himself
sociable. I am sitting on the foredeck perusing a late copy of a magazine
which I had obtained in Constantinople, when that inevitable individual
introduces himself by peeping at the corner of the magazine, and, with a
winning smile, deliberately spells out its name; and soon we are engaged
in as animated a discussion of the magazine as his limited knowledge of
English permits. After listening with much interest to the various
subjects of which it treats, he parades his profuse knowledge of
Anglo-Saxon athletics by asking: "Does it also speak of ballfoot?"

The cuisine in both first and second-class cabins aboard the Egyptian
liners is excellent, being served after the French style, with several
courses and wine ad libitum. At our table is one solitary female, a Greek
lady with an interesting habit of talking and gesticulating during
meal-times, and of promenading the fore-deck in a profoundly pensive mood
between meals. I have good reason to remember her former peculiarity, as
she accidentally knocks a bottle of wine over into my soup-plate while
gesticulating to a couple of Levantines across the table. She is a
curious woman in more respects than one: she always commences to pick her
teeth at the beginning of the meal, and between courses she sticks the
little wooden toothpick, pen-fashion, behind her ear. Being Greek, of
course she smokes cigarettes, and being Greek, of co