AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



white towns with slender palm trees. At places the 

 water from the canal had overflowed wide tracts of 

 country. Here along the shore we saw thousands of 

 the water-fowl already familiar to us, as well as 

 such strangers as gaudy kingfishers, ibises, and rosy 

 flamingoes. 



The canal itself seemed to be in a continual state 

 of repair. Dredgers were everywhere; some of the 

 ordinary shovel type, others working by suction, and 

 discharging far inland by means of weird huge pipes 

 that apparently meandered at will over the face of 

 nature. The control stations were beautifully 

 French and neat, painted yellow, each with its 

 gorgeous bougainvilleas in flower, its square-rigged 

 signal masts, its brightly painted extra buoys stand- 

 ing in a row, its wharf and its impassive Arab 

 fishermen thereon. We reclined in our canvas chairs, 

 had lime squashes brought to us, and watched the 

 entertainment steadily and slowly unrolled before us. 



We reached the end of the canal about three 

 o'clock of the afternoon, and dropped anchor far off 

 low-lying shores. Our binoculars showed us white 

 houses in apparently single rank along a far-reaching 

 narrow sand spit, with sparse trees and a railroad 

 line. That was the town of Suez, and seemed so 

 little interesting that we were not particularly sorry 

 that we could not go ashore. Far in the distance 



28 



