AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



At short and regular intervals, halfway up the 

 minature 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 irresistibly 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 greeting. 

 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 business ; 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. &. O. converted into a troopship 

 from whose every available porthole, hatch, deck, 

 and shroud laughing, brown, English faces shouted 

 chaff at our German decks all these either tied 

 up for us, or were tied up for by us. The only craft 

 that received no consideration on our part were the 

 various picturesque Arab dhows, with their single 

 masts and the long yards slanting across them. 

 Since these were very small, our suction dragged 

 at them cruelly. As a usual thing four vociferous 



26 



