4 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



always opened after dinner, and with the noted 

 good-fellowship of all Anglo-Indians, the evenings 

 were spent in music-making, in which every one, 

 whether soloist or chorister, took his part. Only the 

 low temperature and the long Mediterranean swell 

 served to show that many miles still separated us 

 from Suez and true eastern waters. For five days 

 we steamed peacefully along, dropping down be- 

 tween Sardinia and Corsica, on to the Straits of 

 Messina, between Scylla and Charybdis, and so 

 past the barren cliffs of Crete to Port Said. 



On the third night of the voyage we were afforded 

 what must be, I believe, the most imposing spec- 

 tacle produced by natural phenomena, namely, the 

 eruption of a great volcano. The Lipuarian Islands, 

 which lie off the coast of Sicily, were to be reached 

 about two in the morning, and rumor had gone 

 around that Stromboli was in eruption. When that 

 splendid solitary cone of earth and lava rose slowly 

 into sight, cropping up out of the sea in perfect 

 profile against a white moonlit sky, every passenger 

 was in the bow, waiting and watching. Suddenly 

 from the flattened top of the cone which forms 

 the mouth of the crater a great round mass of 

 what seemed to be molten gold appeared, poised for 

 a moment on the brink, then rolled in bright bur- 

 nished streams down the steep sides of the moun- 



