CHAPTER I

THE VOYAGE

A visit to India and the East had long been a cherished but somewhat vague dream with us. It seemed a far cry, and to make a break of a few months in the midst of the occupations of a busy life is always a difficult matter. The impossible, however, became in course of time possible, and even practicable. Inquiries as to ways and means had the effect of clearing our path; and having the _will_, the _way_ was soon discovered.

“Only sixteen days to Bombay!” our Indian friends in London told us, and they were always urging us to go and see their wonderful country for ourselves. Mr Romesh Dutt and Dr Mulich had been visitors at our house. The former had presented his interesting translation of the “Ramayana,” illustrated by Miss Hardy, to my wife. Besides these we had from time to time made the acquaintance of several native gentlemen in London who were reading for the Indian Bar. They came and went, but all were earnest in their hope that we should visit India, and I think that they had discovered our sympathies were with those of their countrymen in their aspirations to participate in the administration of the affairs of their own country.

The decisive step of booking our passage was at last taken in the summer of 1906, and the 19th day of November following saw us _en route_ for Marseilles, where we committed ourselves to the care of the Messageries Maritime, and embarked on the S.S. “La Nera” in due course, putting to sea on Wednesday, the 21st November.

It was a lovely bright afternoon as we left the port, the southern sunshine flooding everything in golden light. It is a wonderful moment when the ship casts off. The great liner, which had seemed a part of the land itself while the stream of passengers passed up the gangways, and their baggage after them, begins to throb with life and movement—to tremble, as it were, with expectation of departure. As a swimmer about to take the water casts off all impedimenta, so the ship casts off her cables and all that links her to the shore, and glides off into the great blue deep, breasting the waves of the vast open sea. Incredibly fast as the engines beat the solid land fades away. The domes and towers and chimneys silhouetted against the bright sky, the people on the quays, the ships riding at anchor, the tossing harbour buoys, the small sailing craft flitting about, all are rolled by as on the canvas of a moving diorama, as the steamer clears the port, and all detail becomes merged and lost under the bold main outlines of the rocky coast, or the dim shapes of the distant mountains.

As the long shining wake increases astern and the coast recedes, those nautical camp-followers the gulls, which have pursued the ship from the harbour, begin to diminish their numbers, though they wing a long way out to sea, attracted by the crumbs which occasionally fall from the region of the cook’s galley.

A glorious sunset inaugurated our first night at sea—of the order of the Golden Fleece, as it might be called—a distinct type, when in a windless sky a large field of delicate fleecy cirrus cloud spreads in a level field from west to east, and as the sun sinks its under edges are lighted up by golden light, changing to orange, scarlet, and crimson, when he disappears beneath the horizon. So our voyage began propitiously, and with a smooth sea. Early the next morning we passed through the Straits of Bonifazio, between Corsica and Sardinia, the coasts of which we had a glimpse of through our port-hole, and on the morning of the third day, after a little tossing, we sighted Sicily, passing Scylla and Charybdis at the entrance of the straits, and close to Messina. Etna soon came into view, its summit covered with a crown of snow (as we had seen it on our visit to Taormina in 1904).

The Calabrian coast, too, was very interesting, the mountains of striking form, and the lines very varied all along to Cape Spartivento—the toe of the boot-shaped continent of Italy. We could see the little white towns along the coast and among the hills, and the monasteries perched high upon crags. Etna gradually faded away, like a vision, beyond the dark blue edge of the sea, and almost immediately after passing the cape we encountered a strong easterly wind from the Adriatic, which met the Mediterranean here.

At sunset there were huge banks of grey clouds of fantastic shapes rising like high wooded islands, but we had moonlight on the waters every night.

Those grey banks of cloud, however, were ominous, and by November the 24th the weather grew so rough that the “fiddle-strings” became necessary on the tables in the dining-saloon, where the attendance, too, grew distinctly thinner. Towards evening we sighted the cliffs of Crete (Candia), the fissured, mountainous, and dangerous-looking coast plainly visible in the sunlight, though a bank of cloud covered the summits of the island.

After much tossing and rolling through another day and night the lights of Port Said were sighted about four o’clock on the morning of November 26. There was a powerful search-light from the lighthouse. We got into harbour about 5.30, and the coaling began. It was a weird scene. Six black lighters were hauled alongside our steamer, three on the port bow and three on the starboard, and boats crowded to the water’s edge with coolies in long ragged garments and turbans, mostly of a dusky red and blue, the colours shining through the coal dust which darkened their naturally swarthy visages and forms. As these crowded boats approached with their weird passengers, one had an irresistible suggestion of Charon ferrying lost souls across the Styx—there was generally only one pair of oars, as the distance to the steamer from the wharf was very short. Well, these were our coal-slaves, upon whose cheap labour the speed of our steamers depends quite as much as on their own engines, one felt. From the boats they scrambled into the lighters—some shovelled up the coal into hand baskets of matting which others lifted on to their shoulders and carried across a narrow plank into the ship, forming a weird line of black figures silhouetted against the shining water. The coolies worked hard and fast in a black mist of coal dust and kept up a continual hubbub of cries in Arabic and other strange tongues which added to the weirdness of the scene.

Port Said looked very new and flimsy, and was hopelessly vulgarised by flaming posters and advertisements of Western origin both in French and English. Boats swarmed round the ship’s side, and swarthy eager-eyed hotel touts came aboard in Fez caps, as well as a motley crowd of traders, Egyptian conjurers, and European musicians who played the latest popular waltzes. We were glad to escape the coal dust and go ashore, where an intelligent but probably not too scrupulous Egyptian guide undertook to show us everything, and we went with him round the town, passing through the market crowded with the picturesque life of the East, which indeed showed itself everywhere through the thin veneer of modern European commercialism. A venerable-looking prophet swept the streets, and, of course, there were plenty of street arabs ready to turn “cart-wheels” or anything that would turn a more or less honest penny in their direction, and the cry of “Backsheesh” was raised on the slightest provocation. Our guide took us into a small Mohammedan mosque, modern, but, of course, strictly according to the traditional plan and oriented towards Mecca. We had to put on loose canvas shoes over our own shoes to enter the sacred precincts, and our guide gave us a long exposition of the necessary ablutions to be performed by the faithful before and after prayers, and showed us the water tank fitted with taps, at one of which a devotee was busy having his wash.

The bazaar bristled with European goods, and topis and cigarettes were much in evidence, though there were some charming Egyptian fabrics in the form of scarves brocaded with patterns in gold or silver thread or black on white fine linen.

On the whitewashed walls of some of the houses I noticed some primitive paintings in distemper, apparently representing camels, travellers, and palm-trees, done in profile. They were carried horizontally across the front of the houses as a sort of frieze, and were curiously suggestive in a childlike way of a survival of the ancient Egyptian method of decorating. Our guide said that they indicated that the dweller in the house had visited Mecca. Returning to “La Nera” we found her indeed blacker than she was painted, as everything on board was covered with a fine coal dust, which the energy of the crew with copious hose-pipes eventually got rid of. The harbour of Port Said is always busy, many liners and transports coming and going, war vessels of various nationalities lying at anchor, boats plying to and fro, and young, lithe, brown-skinned natives on the quays, ready to dive for silver pieces, crouching shivering on the edge of the wharf, or in a boat, and crying in an almost continuous monotone, “à la mer,” “à la mer,” “à la mer,” until the hoped-for small coin is thrown into the water, when they adroitly dive and intercept it as it falls turning and glittering in the water, and reappear with it in their mouths, which soon open for more.

We started again at 12.30 for Suez, entering the canal. Our steamer was stopped at the first village to allow two steamers to pass—the “Clan Campbell” of Glasgow and the “Herefordshire” of Liverpool.

The weather was quite cool and cloudy and it turned out a showery afternoon. Flocks of pelicans were seen on the waters of the wide shallow lakes we passed. There was a stormy sunset, and there was lightning after nightfall, but later the moon shone brightly, falling on the wan sand of the banks, which had quite the effect of snow under its clear cold light.

The steamer moved slowly through the canal at about the rate of five knots. A passenger was landed at Ismailia, after which we entered the bitter lakes, and next morning we were within fifteen miles from Suez, but our steamer had to stop owing to a transport ship having got aground ahead of us. A German steamer was close behind us, and while waiting many of the passengers landed and roamed about on the desert sand. It was not long, however, before the transport was got off, and she presently passed us, a huge white steamer named the “Rena,” crowded with English “Tommies” homeward bound.

The passage of the Suez Canal is very interesting and comes as a welcome relief after tossing on the open sea out of sight of land. The long level lines of the sandy desert have a reposeful effect, but fine ranges of mountains are often seen beyond, and the desert is frequently varied with the

“strip of herbage strown”

embroidered with palm-trees, and these elements of Egyptian landscape steeped in the translucent atmosphere are relieved by striking bronze-coloured figures in blue robes and swarthy Arabs in white in the foreground on the sand-banks, or an occasional string of camels.

We reached Suez about midday and anchored off the town. The Consul’s tug paid us a visit, and our vessel was soon surrounded by a small fleet of picturesque craft with lateen sails, and gunwales painted with eyes, and in the semblance of quaint fish in bands of green and white, manned by swarthy Arabs and Egyptians. These brought cargo and provisions to be hoisted on board, and the process took an hour or two, but in the afternoon we steamed away again and entered the Red Sea.

The weather grew perceptibly warmer, but was still not oppressive, and there was a cool breeze in the evening. There was a beautiful roseate light at afterglow on the eastern shore, where Mount Sinai was pointed out, and the well of Moses, and the traditional place of the Israelites’ passage of the Red Sea. The sun set in gold and purple behind a bold range of craggy mountains on our starboard side, and a splendid moonlight night succeeded, the moon nearly at full.

On the morning of the 28th November we passed “The Brothers” lightships to starboard, and the next day we were out of sight of land, with a pleasant breeze under the double awnings of the upper deck, enjoying the best summer weather, which we should think ourselves lucky to have in England. The Red Sea was really as blue as the Mediterranean, though of course subject to changes according to the sky, which turned to a wonderful clear greenish gold after sunset, powdered with small dark clouds which floated across it; a violet flush above the gold blending it into the deep blue of the upper sky, the small floating clouds against it showing ashy grey, while against the gold of the afterglow they looked nearly black, the sea being of a rather cold metallic blue. The serene weather and the splendour of the moonlit nights continued, but the temperature rose considerably, reaching 88° Fahr. in our cabin, which was on the starboard side of the ship. It is as well to remember that port side cabins are cooler for the outward voyage, and those on the starboard side for the homeward voyage, as going eastwards the heat of the sun falls on the starboard side necessarily for the greater part of the day, while going westwards of course the reverse is the case. This applies more particularly to the Red Sea.

On November 30th we passed the island of Jubbelteer, on which was a lighthouse, and later, “The Twelve Apostles,” a series of rocky volcanic-looking islands of bold and angular outline, and apparently barren. Sea-birds, however, were seen with black and white bodies and brown wings flying close to the water.

On December the 1st we passed Mocha, of coffee celebrity, and the island of Perrim, where there are lighthouses and signal stations, but, like the other islands we had seen, otherwise desolate in the extreme. Later the Arabian coast came into view and the sea was dotted with the sails of Arab dhows. The coast as we approached Aden showed volcanic-looking mountains, striking in form and bold in outline, with stretches of sand and rock between. Aden was reached about 2 P.M., a school of dolphins playing about the ship as if to welcome our arrival.

Aden looked a queer uninviting place, baked dry by the sun—a cluster of temporary and barrack-like buildings huddled together anyhow along the rocky coast, with never a tree to be seen; the ragged, precipitous, barren edges of extinct volcanoes forming a background to the red-roofed barracks and bungalows.

Several large white warships lay at anchor in the harbour, and lent a touch of gay colour by being decked with strings of bunting from stem to stern in honour of our Queen Alexandra’s birthday. A German liner got in just before us and we saw the coal lighters being rowed up to her. “La Nera” coaled here also, but it was a less grimy proceeding than at Port Said, as the coal was in sacks. The type of coolies, too, was very different, and there were many African negroes (Soumalis) among them, whose skins could hardly be made blacker than they were by nature. In addition to its cluster of coaling lighters, our vessel, now at anchor, was soon surrounded by boats filled with natives who swarmed round the gangways, and soon invaded the ship—a crowd of Soumali traders offering ostrich feathers and feather fans (of a European look), ostrich eggs, wicker bottle-shaped baskets, shell necklaces, and amber beads, who drove their trade amongst the passengers on deck, whilst others endeavoured to catch their eyes from the boats. Thin, lithe young natives with fuzzy hair were very numerous, and some had dyed their hair red, which had a grotesque effect with the black skin. I noted a strange contrast in the same boat, too, which contained two natives, one of whom wore a sort of large-checked suit of pyjamas with his mop of red-dyed hair, while his companion had his head clean shaved with “nodings on”! Some natives seemed to have used face powder—at any rate had smeared some kind of whitening over their countenances with ghastly effect.

The scene was a strange one altogether. The crowd of Europeans on deck, in which nearly every nationality was represented, mostly clad in topis and white garments, the black traders moving about them; the swarm of boats at the sides of the vessel full of bright spots of colour—scarlet turbans, white, orange, yellow, and purple in the costumes—swaying on the turquoise-coloured sea; brown-backed gulls flapping over the water and kites hovering over the harbour; and all steeped in the bright sunshine of the East. Many of the passengers went ashore in the native boats, but the scene seemed more amusing from the ship and we remained on deck.

Aden itself looked more interesting at night, with bright lights here and there on the shore and on the ships, and the rising moon translated everything into terms of mystery and romance.

I watched an Arab dhow set sail. It is one of the most beautiful of sailing vessels, and has a high old-fashioned poop—the line of the gunwale making a fine curve from stem to stern—a mainmast with a big lateen sail, two jibs on a short bowsprit, and a secondary smaller mast astern. The sun set behind the Arabian coast, the jagged peaks of which we had previously passed. The coaling did not finish till nightfall. The coolies seemed to undertake all the mechanical arrangements for the work, fixing the hauling gear and the necessary ropes and planks, and often in the process seeming to hang on to the ship with little more than their eyelids. When they pulled a rope together the cry to keep time sounded like “Leesah!” or “Leeshah!” with emphasis on the first syllable.

The coaling finished, and the curious swarm of native life that had surrounded us departed, “La Nera” weighed anchor and pursued her course eastwards, skirting the rocky coast bathed in the moonlight as she made for the open Arabian Sea.

The next day in the early morning we had sight of some flying-fish. They have almost the appearance of swallows at a distance, especially when seen against the light, but, glancing, as they leap out of the water, to disappear into it again very quickly, they flash in the sun like silver.

The Arabian coast was still faintly visible towards the north, but gradually faded from view. The pleasant light breeze continued and it was not nearly so hot as in the Red Sea, in fact quite pleasant either on deck or below—especially with a “windle” fixed to the cabin port.

We had made an interesting acquaintance on board, a French gentleman who knew India well and who was on his way to revisit that country, intending to join an English friend there on a shooting expedition. He was an old sportsman and had shot big game in Tibet. He united the keenness and experience of a sportsman with literary tastes and a love of history and archæology. This gentleman introduced us to “the green ray,” a phenomenon peculiar to the Eastern seas, I believe. Just at the moment when the sun disappears beneath the horizon there is the appearance of a vivid green spark flashing like a gem which seems to detach itself from the glowing orb and fly upward, instantly disappearing in the reddening haze. We witnessed this on several occasions, but in order to see it a clear sunset is absolutely necessary—that is to say that one must be able to see the sun sink below the horizon clear of cloud. The lovely moonlight nights continued, the moon being now ahead, and the apparent goal of the vessel’s course. One night, however, was disturbed by the steamer stopping in mid-ocean. One gets so accustomed to the throb of the engines on board a steamer that its sudden cessation is quite startling. Passengers clustered near the engine-room to learn the cause, which turned out to be something wrong with “a washer” which affected the movement of the shaft. After about three hours this was repaired and the “Nera” continued her course. She generally made about 300 miles in the twenty-four hours.

Incidents in the Indian Ocean were few and far between. Flying-fish were to be seen, but only in the early morning as a rule; a whale was noticed spouting, and two sharks were sighted. I saw, too, a large turtle turn over close to the ship’s side, but such sights very occasionally varied the wide seascape, and many were glad to turn to deck games or bridge for diversion, if they could not find it in books, or in observing their fellow passengers.

Certainly amongst these latter there was no want of interest or variety; they were quite an international group, and included English and Anglo-Indians returning after leave of absence in Europe to take up their official duties, civil or military, on new appointments with their wives and families; a large proportion of French (it being a French steamer); then there were Portuguese and Dutch (going out to Australia), Germans and Canadians, Armenians from Rangoon, and Indians from Bombay; several Armenian priests also, probably missionaries; there were negroes and Arabs in the fo’castle, and among the second-class passengers a characteristic group of English workmen—foremen engineers and navvies. They were bound for Bombay, having been engaged to direct coolie labour on new and extensive docks at that port, their contract being for three years, and their passage paid. I think they got very tired of doing nothing and did not feel quite happy with the French dinners, although the heaviest man of the party made it a rule to devour everything that was set before him, taking Saint Paul’s advice, and “asking no questions.” I think all the ages of man—and woman—were represented on board, including more than one infant “mewling and puling in its nurse’s arms.” A little sample of the big world chipped off and sent adrift on the ocean—a ship of life, not without its enigmas, its little ironies and uncertainties, tossed upon the very type of uncertainty—the sea.

A ship, however, is a castle of indolence as far as the passengers are concerned, though the crew, I suspect, would tell a very different story, as, apart from the severe work of the engineers and stokers, their work never seems at an end, and it is only by constant washing, scrubbing, and sweeping that a steamer can be kept decently clean and habitable.

To break the monotony of the five days’ voyage on the Indian Ocean a concert was got up by an energetic young lady and her friends. They went round the ship to discover what hidden musical or histrionic talent might be concealed under the more or less disguised personalities of the passengers, and they succeeded in drawing out enough for an evening’s entertainment on the saloon deck, which was picturesquely draped with bunting for the occasion, and a piano was wheeled into position. Various songs were given, and a French princess, who was among the passengers, recited. The young lady who had been the leading spirit in organising the concert herself gave some charming songs which she accompanied on a guitar, and a pretty song in Japanese costume and umbrella from “The Geisha,” I think, with much spirit. The proceeds went to the benefit of the orphans of the Messageries Maritimes sailors.

After this violent excitement the days passed as days do at sea, the fine weather continuing with delightful monotony. The fresh easterly breeze was strong enough to fleck the blue plain with “white horses,” yet not cause any trying movement of the vessel, which ploughed steadily through the waves, driving the spray from its bows, and causing dancing rainbows on the foamy crests as they rebounded from the ship’s side. The sun rising in clear glory from the sea, disappeared each evening in tranquil splendour, showing the green ray, and the deep red along the horizon in the west afterwards, over the dark blue sea. The dark blue above and the illuminated sky between, recalled the favourite effect in Japanese prints by Hiroshigi, and at the same time testified to its truth.

But all things have an end, even ocean voyages, and about four o’clock on the morning of Friday, December the 7th, our steamer slowed down and took on board the pilot, and we, cautiously steering past mysterious islands under the dawn, finally cast anchor in Bombay harbour.