1914II On the Way to Australia 



understood — was even then carrying on work in the 

 Aquarium. I was accordingly shown to his room, where 

 I waited for an hour without a sign of my friend, the 

 only other person present being a young man busily 

 engaged at a table. Looking up finally he asked me 

 my business, and when I had explained said that he 

 was Dr. "Fischer." 



Sailing along the Italian coast we had fine views of 

 Vesuvius, the steep cone of Stromboli, and the mighty 

 mass of Etna. Messina was visibly rising from the 

 wreck of the great earthquake. Over the swift tide- Scyiu 

 rip whirlpool in the Straits so much feared by the ^^'^^ ^^.^ 

 little craft of the ancients — the "Scylla" which they 

 escaped only to be dashed on the rocks of " Charybdis" 

 — the Kleist sailed without a tremor. Along the 

 shores of the Peloponnesus the weather was still 

 clear, the white-crested "Taygetos" of "five-fingered" 

 Sparta looming impressively, as did also the loftier 

 peaks of Ida and Pneumo on the island of Crete. 



At Port Said, a sinful cosmopolitan town, I engaged Port Said 

 an Arab gentleman bearing the classical but perhaps 

 assumed name of Hassan Ali to aid me in exploring 

 the region and collecting fishes. Of these we found a 

 fair number, on which "Jordan and Hubbs" reported 

 in due time. Ali said that his wife, whom he married 

 two years before at the age of eighteen, had not been 

 out of the house, thus avoiding all appearance of evil. 



We now passed on through the Red Sea, hot and The Red 

 sultry even in January but enlivened by cloud eff^ects ^"'^ 

 unsurpassed anywhere else on the globe. Near its 

 head stands the sacred mountain of Sinai, high, slicken, 

 and desolate to such an extent that the miracle of the 

 burning bush rested apparently on the fact that 

 Moses found a bush to burn! Farther on we sighted 



C 561 1 



