The Suez Canal and Red Sea. 251 



the pleasant alternative of leaping over her or awaiting her 

 tardy emancipation. 



Of course you will run ashore at Port Said, if you have 

 the chance, though you probably will not remain long within 

 its unsavoury borders. It is not an inviting town. How- 

 ever, the nimble, half-naked, and wholly uncleansed gentry 

 who bring your coal on board get through their work in an 

 incredibly short space of time, considering that the supply is 

 transferred from a barge alongside in baskets borne on men's 

 shoulders. Fruit, too ever welcome at sea may be got at 

 Port Said ; melons, oranges, lemons, and dates all the year 

 round, and something better in season; also vegetables, 

 excellent fish, and general stores. Port Said is, at any rate, 

 serviceable. The place just now is said to be overrun with 

 rascally Greeks, who are ready, at a moment's notice, to cut 

 your throat, rifle your pockets, or scuttle your ship. A few 

 nights before my arrival a youth had made a pile of money 

 at a roulette table ; next morning he was found murdered 

 at the upper part of the town, and he had no effects on his 

 person. 



In saying, however, that of course you will run ashore at 

 Port Said, I am assuming that you take no ladies with you. 

 Even the best part of the town, if there be a best where 

 everything seems to be bad, is no place for any person of 

 refined tastes ; and those who remain on board had much 

 better not be too curious in examining the wares which 

 rascally Europeans (dirty Frenchmen and women, or blear- 

 eyed Turks) hawk about the decks. The places of amuse- 

 ment seemed to be of the lowest description, and I doubt 

 whether in any tavern anything like fair accommodation can 

 be had for man or beast. The streets are foul, the people 

 unwholesome, and the precincts arid desert. 



Ever so little greenery at Port Said would be grateful. 



