passed at 3.10 P.M. The Clyde, P. and O. steamer, passed out of the Red Sea at the same time as we passed in; she was steaming over eleven knots against the wind which was dead ahead for her, and which is taking us along nine knots. On the top of Perim Island, which we leave on the port hand, is a round lighthouse with a dome and square brick building, and a road leading up to it. On the coast of Arabia immediately opposite, are the square white barracks built at one time for French troops, who all died like flies and were absolutely no use whatever, as they jealously watched the lighthouse which the practical English had erected on the island. The barracks are now abandoned, but there are a few dhows moored there. These dhows are the exact counterpart of the ships used by the ancient Egyptians in these seas, as will be apparent if the accompanying sketch of one made on the spot be compared with bas-reliefs of the latter in Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 277. These dhows slip across the Red Sea, laden to the gunwale with the wretched victims of slave traders in the Soudan. If a slaver can run his dhow ashore, he can land his cargo beneath the guns of our cruisers, who can only make seizures on the high seas. Then, again, the slaver has only to secure a French flag and he is free from all danger; and both here and in the Mozambique Channel a great deal is done under the French flag. The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb are divided by the island of Perim into two channels, a smaller and a larger one. The larger channel is that between Perim and the African coast, nine miles wide, and has a depth varying between 131 feet, and 1,181 feet, and is consequently perfectly safe for the passage of ships. But this channel is but little used, as it is a circuitous route for vessels making for or coming from Aden. On the African coast, outside the Red Sea, and seventy miles from Perim, there is the French station of Obok, at the entrance to the Bay of Tajurrah. The smaller channel is that between Perim and the Arabian shore, one and three-quarter miles wide, with a depth varying between forty and seventy feet. Its passage is consequently also perfectly safe, and is used much more than that of the western and wider channel. There is a strong current continually setting into the Red Sea up from the south through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; but as the evaporation from the surface is enormous, amounting, it has been calculated annually, to a layer of not less than eight feet in thickness, and as scarcely any of the water thus withdrawn is returned by rain or rivers, if there were no outflow for the Red Sea it would in time become intensely salt. But it does not; hence Captain Maury argues for an under current outwards of the heavier water beneath the upper inflowing current, as in the case of the Mediterranean in the Straits of Gibraltar. Just the reverse happens in the case of the other two inland seas, the Baltic and the Black Sea; each of these seas receives from rivers much more fresh water than is consumed from off their surface by evaporation; so that there is a constant surface outflow from each through the Sound and the Dardanelles. In time (it is reckoned 300 years) if this went on unchecked the whole water of each sea would be fresh; but it is not so at all; for there is an under current inwards in each case of salt water from the North Sea and from the Mediterranean. The action of this was demonstrated by a basket weighted with shot that was let down into it from a boat; in the Baltic this current runs very near the surface. Feb. 22nd. The fair breeze still holds, taking us along between nine and ten knots, not a cloud to be seen. Last night we passed fifteen steamers sweeping down from the canal, and making the Red Sea quite like the English Channel. The islands we are passing all day are red, bare, sandy-looking precipices scarred with lines, without a tree or scrap of verdure; we pass the last of them about 3 P.M. We are rolling somewhat, but going along more comfortably than the many steamers we pass making in the opposite direction, which seem to be pitching and driving their bows under the foam. In the afternoon passed Jebel Teir and Annesley Bay, where the Abyssinian expedition landed for Magdala. The air is clear and dry, and the colour of the evening sky after the sun has set produces a transparent effect we have never seen anywhere else. In the evening we watched the young moon set on its back over Egypt; Jupiter was bright above her at the time, and higher up glittered the Bull's strange weird horns, where the inverted triangle of stars which look like a real bull's head was peering down; higher up above the Bull was Sirius, to-night the brightest star of any; down on the southern horizon our old friend the Southern Cross had just risen; but we shall not see him much longer, for the Little Bear and the Great Bear (the "Churl's Waggon and Horses") are beginning to crawl up the northern sky. Feb. 23rd.-The wind is dying away, but we have done to-day one-quarter the distance up the Red Sea under sail. At 10.30 A.M. a French man-of-war, supposed to be the corvette Villars, passed us, steaming south. She came up on our port side, then inquisitively went across our bows, had a good look at us, and ultimately passed on the starboard hand. It is much warmer to-day; thermometer over 80°. Feb. 24th. Nearly a dead calm, consequently much warmer. We lay with our head off our course all the morning; went to general quarters. Saw a large barque-rigged steamer pass in the distance going north, probably the P. & O. After the dinner-hour caught a young shark off the glacis with five rows of teeth. In the afternoon got the screw down, shortened and furled sails, and began steaming at 3 P.M., thirty revolutions; immediately afterwards the dead headwind sprang up from the north, which we had not expected to meet so soon. We had almost hoped to have been able to sail up as far as Jedda, for at this time of the year the upward current of wind from the south, which is the curl-in of the north-east monsoon round and up the funnel of Bab-el-Mandeb, blows far stronger than the northern one, which again is strongest. during the south-west monsoon. The norther which we have picked up to-day is probably blowing down over every inch of the sea between us and Suez. It is apparently quite a surface wind and only blows low along the sea, for the few clouds that are overAs the head are moving very slowly and are not affected by it. sun went down behind Nubia there was a greasy look all over the sky to the north. Down topgallant masts, pointed yards to the wind. Now it is our turn to begin to pitch. Feb. 25th.-Thermometer only 70°, but it is sunny and bright, and the sea has got up a bit. Many steamers passed us going southward, and with their foremasts covered with sail, ploughing heavily along before the wind. At sunset saw Chimney Mountain on the Nubian coast sixty miles away-a strange little peak which came out clear against the setting sun, but was not visible before nor after. Feb. 26th.-Usual service on the main deck. In the afternoon shoals of dolphins all round the ship; from these came the "badgers' skins" dyed sky blue, red (like morocco), and yellow (the three sacred Egyptian colours) for the service of the Jewish sanctuary (Ex. xxvi. 14). There are two or three kinds caught in this sea, chiefly by harpoon. They are cetaceous animals, their teeth are prized as ivory, and their thick hides are still used as leather for sandals. The travelling bags for the sacred tent of the Jews and its vessels are said to have been made from the hide of this animal (Numbers iv. 6-15). They are still often taken by a large strong net on the cliffs of the coral reefs, where they browse like cattle on the marine herbage, but they are exceedingly shy and wary. At sunset saw the Uba mountains in Nubia, and during the night we passed out of the tropics. Feb. 27th. The thermometer below 70° for the first time for ever so long. We are 380 miles off Suez to-day. Did some bar in the afternoon, but all the deck and everything you touch is black and grimy with "stokers," or flying coal-dust, and the only refuge from them is forward on the forecastle, where one can get a mouthful of fresh air, though every now and then a heavy spray may splash up over you. The Cleopatra is dipping her nose right under, much more than we are. At 4 P.M. passed Daedalus lighthouse, a desolate-looking place all by itself on a shoal in the middle of the Red Sea and out of sight of land. Though as the sun went down and just as his disk touched the horizon we were able to discern in the extreme western distance steep cliffs and hills, and this was our first view of the land of Egypt. To-day we are twenty-one days out from Ceylon. Feb. 28th.--The wind has shifted a bit to the east, coming down out of the gulf of Akabah, that deep, strange brother of the Dead Sea, with no bottom at 150 fathoms. No sail is ever seen upon it, for the Arabs believe it to be haunted, and call it the Gate of Hell. A constant succession of squalls from off the high cliffs which shut it in on every side render it an unpleasant place for small craft, as the landsmen found who manned Jehoshaphat's ships "to go to Ophir for gold" without the aid of the experienced Phoenician sailors whom his wiser great-grandfather, Solomon, employed for the same purpose; so the ships "went not, for they were wrecked at Ezion-geber" (1 Kings, xxii. 48) at the head of the gulf. At 9 A M. passed the Brothers' Reef, two flat yellow rocks, said to be generally awash, and 250 miles from Suez. The France, an English trans port, the same as we saw at the Cape of Good Hope last year, passed us going south, empty this time, and under sail as well as steam. Between this and noon eight steamers passed us steering south. This head-wind never seems to intermit, neither do the "stokers" nor the pitching seas, one of which, during the smoking hour, broke over the forecastle and put everybody's pipe out. At 7 P.M. passed the island of Shadwân, or "seals," which visit this northern part of the Red Sea, where their teeth and tusks are found. These seals and not the porpoises have been thought by some to be the "badgers" of the authorised version. But "badger skins" were probably porpoise hides; the Arabs use the Hebrew word takhash ("the badger" in the authorised version) for cetacea in general, whereas they call seals shadwân. Seal-skin also would not make soles for shoes (Ezek. xvi. 10). The mountains of the Sinaitic range on the eastern side and those of Egypt on the western were very clear at sunset as we entered the Gulf of Suez. Those of Egypt look very rocky, rough, and jagged. St. David's Day, March 1st.-At dawn, thermometer 60°. At 5.30 A.M., just before sunrise, looked out through the starboard ports over the surface of the wan water, just crisped by the north wind, at the long ridge of hills of the Sinaitic peninsula, which then stood out, clear cut, in dark præ-Raphaelite blue against the saffron sky behind. On the extreme right-hand of the line stands up the conical peak of Umm-Shomer (forty-five miles off). This, from the present position of the ship, appears the highest of the group. Away to the left rises the more rounded top of Mount Serbal. Between these two extreme points, only in the further distance, appear the jagged peaks of Mount St. Katherine. Sinai, or Jebel Mûsa, was behind these and so shut out from view. In the foreground by the seashore stretched the lower range of Gabeliych hills, grey, and eighteen miles away. As we watched, up, over Mount Serbal, rose the sun: "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered: let them also that hate Him flee before VOL. II. A A |