IC TWO YEARS IN" THE JUT^GLE. 



of draught for laden vessels, ten francs per foot when in ballast 

 The total cost of the canal was eighteen and a quarter million 

 pounds sterling, to say nothing of the millions of pounds worth of 

 "forced labor" — or, in plain English, slave labor of the most deadly 

 sort — supplied by Ismail Pasha. 



The next morning we ran the gauntlet of buoys and beacons 

 which mark the channel across the Bitter Lakes, and continued our 

 winding course through the desert. The canal makes a great 

 many very sharp curves, and it is a delicate task to take a large 

 steamer through without a mistake. About noon, we saw, across 

 the desert, a number of ships ; the desert gradually sank away into 

 the sea, and at one o'clock p.m., just thirty-one hours from Port 

 Said, we anchored in the harbor of Suez. Professor Ward came on 

 board directly, with nearly a bushel of fresh echinoderms, and 

 after a stay of two hoiu-s, we weighed anchor and started down the 

 Gulf of Suez. 



Half way down the Red Sea, on the Arabian shore, lies Jeddah, 

 the nearest port to Mecca, and therefore the landing place for the 

 throng of Mohammedan pilgi-ims constantly coming from all parts 

 of Northern Africa and Southern Asia to visit the tomb of the 

 Prophet. We were to caU there for a deck-load of returning pil- 

 grims bound to Bombay, and just forty-eight hours from Suez, the 

 towTi lay before us, compact, angular and gi'ay, bounded on three 

 sides by the desolate barrenness characteristic of the Arabian pen- 

 insula^ Taking a position with as much precision as a man going 

 to leap over a bar, we slowly and cautiously threaded our way- 

 through a break in the coral barrier reef which forms the harbor. 



It was close nipping sometimes, and once or twice we had to 

 stop and go astern before we could pass the end of a reef ; but the 

 swarthy Arab pilot we had brought from Suez took our ship 

 through without accident. How large sailing ships manage to get 

 through is more than a landsman can see, but they do it somehow, 

 for we saw several riding at anchor inside the reefs, which is the 

 only harbor there is at Jeddah. There were in port a dozen or 

 more large steamers like our owti, and a whole fleet of sailing ves- 

 sels, most of which had come laden with pilgrims, and were wait- 

 ing to bear back their living freight. 



We had a day to spend on shore, and made the most of it. 

 Upon landing we found that the substantial portion of the town 

 is built of fossil coral and coralHne Hmestone. Great masses of 

 brain coral, Meandrince and Astreoporce, have been quarried from the 



