692 The American Naturalist. [August, 
necessar>'. But a few words on the voyage out may not be amiss 
here. We left Germany on November 12th, 1875, starting from 
Frankfort, and traveling through Southern Germany, a part of 
Switzerland, France and Italy to Genoa, on the Mediterranean. 
This was via Geneva and the great Mont Cenis tunnel. Owing 
t(i an unfortunate delay of nearly a da>^ at Turin we managed to 
miss a certain steamer of the Rubattino line, with which w^e had 
intended to sail, and as we would iia\ c had to wait more than 
fourteen days for another, we left GetDa, within tw^o hours after 
our arrival, for Marseilles, where uc secured berths on board the 
Anadyr, one of the French mail-steamers, of the Messageries 
Maritimes, which go to China, but touch at Ceylon and Singa- 
pore. During the passage through the Mediterranean we had the 
opportunit}- of seeing no less than three volcanoes, viz., Mt. 
Vesu\ ius, at Naples (where the steamer called for additional mail 
and passengers). Mt. Etna, on Sicily, and Stromboli, that singu- 
lar little \(^lcano — one of the Lipari islands — which rises abruptly 
from the waters, and which we passed within a few hundred 
\ artls distance. The Suez canal struck me as singularly narrow ; 
safely 
pass one anotl 
ler, anc 
1 tlK 
It was the 
reason why it took 
stcam( 
er nearly two 
days t< 
3 go 
. through 
(the canal is only sc 
eight) 
- miles long.) 
Wheneve 
r a stear 
ner was sighted or 
naled 
coming the 
ther wa 
ty,o 
.ne of the 
vessels had to turn 1 
one of the basins w^hich are cut into the sides of the canal, at 
intervals of about two miles, and this takes a great deal of time, 
so that a ship may take three days and longer in going through 
that canal. The voyage from Suez to Aden, through the Red 
Sea, which took about six days, I still hold in lively remem- 
brance. The heat was something terrible, and there was no escape 
from it ; a young Frenchman died on board with sunstroke. Dr. 
(loldschmied and I were the only Germans on board, the major- 
ity of the pas.sengers being Frenchmen, bound for Saigon on the 
co.ist of Annam, and the rest Spaniards. g<nng to Manilla. 
We landed in Ceylon on December 9th, exactly three weeks 
after our departure from Marseilles. So much of the voyage. 
Dr. Goldschmied's mi.ssion, I am sorry to relate, — the great task 
