256 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



that lies between Lake Menzaleh and the 

 Mediterranean, and Hves on the trade of the canal. 



It was towards this cosmopolis that the 

 midnight express tore along. Great liners with 

 blazing head-lights all aglow with electric brilli- 

 ance were passed, and we were soon at the north- 

 ern terminus of the canal ; we had reached what 

 is generally termed the wickedest town of the 

 world. 



It was two o'clock in the morning, and we 

 drank coffee and smoked glorious cigarettes out- 

 side a cafe, what time a Turkish acrobat turned 

 nimble somersaults. Port Said never sleeps. 

 It is a half-way house to the Orient, a quaint 

 seaport made by the genius of one man, and he has 

 no reason to be proud of his creation. The 

 East and the West and Paganism all come 

 together at Port Said. The sins of the world 

 find expression in this shameless seaport, the 

 iniquities of earth assemble here to revel. 



Commerce and vice are curiously intertwined. 

 Here vessels may coal and halt awhile ere they 

 continue their voyages to the lands of the rising 

 sun. It is an ocean rest-house. Here are agencies 

 of all the great steamship companies, coal 

 companies, representatives of the merchant 

 princes of the East, and the sumptuous dome- 

 capped offices of the Suez Canal Company. Port 

 Said is on the highway of the seas, and all ocean 

 passengers to and from India, China, Japan, 

 East Africa and Australia, must pass her gates. 



Sin has a half-way house here as well as 

 Commerce. This is a forwarding station in the 

 traffic of the white slaves, a place that drains 

 Europe of its immoral surplus, a distributing 

 centre for the houses of shame that lie east of 

 Suez. The fairest, least-soiled goods in this 



