is seen
of the ladies by no means creates a wish to see more. And Wilkinson,
since the conversation which they had had at the Pyramids, was
anxious to assume his own rights in the vicarage-house at Hurst
Staple. So they decided on returning about the middle of March; but
they decided also on visiting Suez before doing so.

In these days men go from Cairo to Suez as they do from London to
Birmingham--by railway; in those days--some ten or twelve years back,
that is--they went in wooden boxes, and were dragged by mules through
the desert.

We cannot stay long at Suez, nor should I carry my reader there, even
for a day, seeing how triste and dull the place is, had not our hero
made an acquaintance there which for some time was likely to have a
considerable effect on his future life.

Suez is indeed a triste, unhappy, wretched place. It is a small
oriental town, now much be-Europeanized, and in the process of being
be-Anglicized. It is not so Beelzebub-ridden a spot as Alexandria,
nor falling to pieces like Cairo. But it has neither water, air, nor
verdure. No trees grow there, no rivers flow there. Men drink brine
and eat goats; and the thermometer stands at eighty in the shade in
winter. The oranges are the only luxury. There is a huge hotel, which
contains long rows of hot cells, and a vast cave in which people eat.
The interest of the place consists in Pharoah's passage over the
Red Sea; but its future prosperity will be caused by a transit of a
different nature:--the passage of the English to and from India will
turn even Suez into an important town.

Here the two travellers encountered a flood of Indians on their
return home. The boat from Calcutta came in while they were there,
and suddenly all the cells were tenanted, and the cave was full of
spoiled children, tawny nurses, pale languid mothers, and dyspeptic
fathers. These were to be fellow-travellers homewards with Bertram
and Wilkinson.

Neither of our friends regarded with favour the crowd which made them
even more uncomfortable than they had been before. As Englishmen in
such positions generally do, they kept themselves aloof and scowled,
frowned at the children who whined in the nearest neighbourhood
to them, and listened in disgust to the continuous chatter about
punkahs, tiffins, and bungalows.

But close to them, at the end of the long table, at the common
dinner, sat two ladies, on whom it was almost impossible for them to
frown. For be it known t