84 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



short distance. The banks glided by very 

 slowly and very evenly, the wash sucked after 

 us like water in a slough after a duck boat, and 

 the sky above the yellow sand looked extremely 

 blue. 



At short and regular intervals, half-way up 

 the miniature sandhills, heavy piles or snubbing- 

 posts had been planted. For these we at first 

 could guess no reason. Soon, however, we had 

 to pass another ship ; and then we saw that 

 one of us must tie up to avoid being drawn irre- 

 sistibly by suction into collision with the other. 

 The craft sidled by, separated by only a few 

 feet, so that we could look across to each 

 other's decks and exchange greetings. As the 

 day grew this interest grew likewise. Dredgers 

 in the canal ; rusty tramps flying unfamiliar 

 flags of strange tiny countries ; big freighters, 

 often with Greek or Turkish characters on their 

 sterns ; small dirty steamers of suspicious busi- 

 ness ; passenger ships like our own, returning 

 from the tropics, with white- clad, languid figures 

 reclining in canvas chairs ; gunboats of this or 

 that nation bound on mysterious affairs ; once 

 a P. & 0. converted into a troopship, from whose 

 every available porthole, hatch, deck, and shroud 

 laughing, brown, English faces shouted chaff at 



