18 AFRICA SPEAKS 



approaching old Port Said, >vhere real romance begins. 

 When the anchor slid down at the Mediterranean end 

 of the Suez Canal, I found that progress had even 

 invaded this place since my last visit. A new pontoon 

 arrangement was hauled to the ship's side so that we 

 could walk ashore and did not have to crowd into 

 little frail boats and argue with dirty boatmen as in 

 the past. I went uptown to visit the place where I 

 met the famous "gili-gili" man some years before; 

 then stopped in at the Simon Artz store. 



We started the journey through the canal that same 

 evening, and when morning broke were in the land of 

 sand and camels for sure. Many of the barbed-wire 

 entanglements built during the war were still to be 

 seen, and the French pilot remarked that there had been 

 some real engagements fought among the sand dunes 

 bordering the canal. 



The town of Suez may be an interesting place, but, 

 although I have been in the harbor three times, I have 

 never been ashore. An officer told me that there was no 

 logical reason for Suez, except that it held up one end 

 of the canal, and was the place beyond which, all poets 

 insisted, lay the lands of romance. 



On the first day of the journey through the Red Sea, 

 we held a mass meeting around many glasses of cold 

 Pilsener beer and, by unanimous vote, it was rechris- 

 tened the "Red Hot Sea." Not a breath of air was 

 stirriiig, and everybody on shipboard suffered more 

 or less. It was almost beyond endurance — night 

 being just as hot as daytime. One of the lady passen- 

 gers noticed a seaman pulling up a sample of water 

 and wanted to know the reason. He told her they 

 b^d to keep tab on the temperature of the sea as they 



