II 



THE FAREWELL 



WE BOARDED ship filled witn a great, and 

 what seemed to us an unappeasable, curiosity 

 as to what we were going to see. It was not a very big 

 ship, in spite of the grandiloquent descriptions in the 

 advertisements, or the lithograph wherein she cut 

 grandly and evenly through huge waves to the mani- 

 fest discomfiture of infinitesimal sailing craft bobbing 

 alongside. She was manned entirely by Germans. 

 The room stewards waited at table, cleaned the 

 public saloons, kept the library, rustled the baggage, 

 and played in the band. That is why we took our 

 music between meals. Our staterooms were very 

 tiny indeed. Each was provided with an electric 

 fan; a totally inadequate and rather aggravating 

 electric fan once we had entered the Red Sea. Just 

 at this moment we paid it little attention, for we 

 were still in full enjoyment of sunny France where, 

 in our own experience, it had rained two months 

 steadily. Indeed, at this moment it was raining; 

 raining a steady, cold, sodden drizzle that had not 



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