enough and deep enough to permit steamers to go ahead at full speed,
which will more than make up the difference, and include the stay at
Ismaïlia. There are sometimes unavoidable delays. A vessel may get
aground, and bar the passage for a day or two. The canal is not in all
places wide enough for one large steamer to pass another, and there are
sidings, as on a single track railroad, where it can be done, a little
more than three miles apart. Posts are set up every five kilometres to
indicate the distances."

"Anchor aweigh, sir," reported the first officer.

"Heave it up," replied the captain, and went to the pilot-house.

The "Big Four" had gone on board of the Maud, and she got under way at
the same time. The pilot was on board of the ship, and none was taken
for the little steamer, which was regarded as the tender. Captain Scott
had his plan of the harbor before him, and he could have taken his craft
into the basin without any assistance; but he was required to follow the
ship.

Port Said owes its existence to the canal, and without that it would
amount to nothing. It is located on the eastern end of an island which
is a part of the narrow neck of land which divides Lake Menzaleh from
the Mediterranean. It was thought when it was laid out that it would
become a considerable city; but it has not yet realized this
expectation, though it has now a population of over seventeen thousand.
Six thousand of this number are Europeans, the French predominating. The
making of the harbor, or "Grand Basin Ismail" as it is called, was
another difficult task for the canal company; for it has an area of 570
acres, which had to be excavated to the depth of twenty-six feet by
dredging.

The Guardian-Mother, followed by the Maud, passed through the channel,
which is marked by red and green lights, to the basin, where the former
was moored at one of the walls. The town could not be seen by the
tourists till the ship entered the basin, and then it was found to be a
place of no small importance. It contains two good hotels, where one may
board at one for three dollars a day, and at the other for two and a
half.

It was necessary for the steamers to coal at this point, and the party
went on shore. From the deck they could see up the principal street. The
French post-office, for there is also an Egyptian, was close to the
wharf; and they hastened to that, for most of them had written letters
to their friends at home. It was still Egypt, and the place was true to
its national character; for the travellers were immediately beset by a
horde of beggars, and bakshish was still a popular clamor. The shops
were like those of other regions, though they did not seem to be doing a
very thriving trade; for the entire surrounding country was either a
desert or a morass, and there were few to go shopping.

There was really nothing to be seen there, and the passengers soon
returned to the ship, impatient to proceed on the passage through the
canal; but the night was coming on, and the commander decided to make an
early start the next morning, for he wished his charge to see the
country as they passed through it, and especially the steamers on their
way to India and China. After dinner the company gathered in the
music-room; but it was observed that the commander and Dr. Hawkes were
absent. They had remained in the cabin, and were in conversation.

"What is the present condition of your patient, Doctor?" asked the
captain as soon as they were alone.

"He is doing very well, and is in a fair way to recover in a short
time," replied the surgeon.

"After we get through the Red Sea, we strike out on a voyage of ten days
or more, and I am not anxious to retain this villain on board,"
continued the captain. "I owe him nothing, though I shall treat him with
common humanity. In a word, I wish to get rid of him as soon as
possible."

"There is nothing in his present condition to prevent you from putting
him on shore at any time,--to-night, if you are so disposed," replied
Dr. Hawkes in decided terms.

"You would oblige me very much, Doctor, by broaching this subject to
him. I suppose he has money, though I know nothing about it, and he can
pay his way at one of the hotels here," suggested the captain.

"We had the United States Consul with us at dinner, as you are aware,
and he can inform you whether or not there is a hospital here. I will
see Mazagan at once, and do as you desire. I will see you in your cabin
in half an hour," said the surgeon, as he went forward to the hospital.

Captain Ringgold went to the music-room, where the consul was enjoying
himself in listening to Miss Blanche, who was giving him some account of
the voyage; and she had just mentioned "The Battle of Khrysoko," of
which the consul wished to know more. The captain called him aside, and
proceeded to question him in regard to the care of the patient in the
town.

"I have a wounded man on board, and I wish to get rid of him," he
began.

"Wounded in the battle of which Miss Woolridge was telling me?" asked
the official.

"Precisely so; but he is not of my party, and is the biggest scoundrel
that ever went unhung;" and the commander gave a brief account of his
relations to Mazagan. "Is there a hospital in Port Said?"

"None, except for _fellahs_ and other laborers. If he is a respectable
man, perhaps I can find accommodations for him at the Hotel de France,"
answered the consul. "I will go and see the landlord at once, and report
to you in half an hour."

"Come to my cabin on the upper deck."

In less than the time he had stated he came back, and reported that the
hotel would take him at sixty francs a week. While he was in the cabin
the doctor presented himself.

"Does this patient require a nurse?" asked the consul.

"He does not. In the last two days he has greatly improved," replied the
doctor, "though we keep a man near him to prevent him from doing any
mischief."

It was settled that the patient should be sent on shore that night to
the hotel, and the consul returned to the music-room.

"Mazagan protests against being sent ashore here; and I have no doubt he
would do the same at Ismaïlia or Suez," said Dr. Hawkes. "He insists
upon seeing you, and declares that he has important business with you.
If you do not seriously object, perhaps that would be the easiest way to
quiet him."

"Can he walk?" asked the commander.

"As well as you can, Captain. He has a lame shoulder; but he can help
himself with his left hand, and I have put his right arm in a sling, to
prevent him from using it," answered Dr. Hawkes.

Captain Ringgold struck his bell, and sent for Knott to conduct the
patient to his cabin. In a few minutes Mazagan was seated in the chair
he had occupied once before as a prisoner.

"You wish to see me?" the commander began rather curtly.

"I do, Captain Ringgold. You talk of sending me ashore at this place. I
protest against it," said the prisoner; for such he was really.

"Do you intend to remain on board of my ship for an indefinite period?"

"Until you settle my account with you," answered the pirate, as
self-possessed as though he had been the victor dealing with the
vanquished.

"Don't say anything more to me about your account!" added the commander,
fiercely for him. "Your protest is of no consequence to me, and I shall
put you ashore to-night!"

"You don't know what you are doing, Captain Ringgold," said the wounded
man, with a savage scowl on his face. "The Fatimé was old and worn out,
or your tender could not have crushed in her side. Let me tell you that
my noble master, the Pacha, ordered a new steam-yacht of a thousand tons
a year ago; and if you treat me with this inhumanity, he will follow you
all over the world till he obtains his revenge."

[Illustration: "KNOTT, TAKE THIS VILLAIN AWAY." Page 201.]

"That is enough of this nonsense!" said the captain, springing from his
chair, and calling for Knott, who was at the door.

"If you pay me the two hundred thousand francs, that will be the end of
the affair," added the prisoner.

"I will never pay you a centime! Knott, take this villain away, and have
him conveyed to the Hotel de France at once!" said the commander.

Knott obeyed the order, taking the pirate by the left arm. Mr. Boulong
was instructed to carry out the order given. In five minutes more the
Moor was marched up the quay between two seamen, and handed over to the
landlord. At daylight the next morning the Guardian-Mother and the Maud
sailed on their way through the canal; and nothing more was seen of
Captain Mazagan.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CONFERENCE ON THE SUEZ CANAL

The Grand Basin Ismail, at Port Said, is only an extension in breadth of
the canal, and the Guardian-Mother had only to proceed on her course by
the narrow water-way through the desert. The Maud followed her closely,
having nothing to fear on account of the depth of the water; and even
the ship had plenty under her keel. But it is said that, by what appears
to be a curious reversal of the ordinary rule, the very large steamers
are in less danger of running aground than those of smaller dimensions.

When the commander stated this canal axiom to the passengers assembled
before the starting on the promenade, Uncle Moses objected strenuously
to its truth, and Dr. Hawkes warmly supported him. The statement did not
look reasonable to them.

"Is it claimed that a vessel drawing twenty-five feet of water is in
less peril than one needing only eighteen feet of water to float her?"
asked the lawyer.

"The facts seem to prove this; but you will say that it is so much the
worse for the facts," replied the captain, laughing at the earnestness
of the non-nautical gentlemen; and even the ladies understood the
matter well enough to be interested in the dispute.

"The affirmative side of the question must prove its position,"
suggested the doctor.

"Which the affirmative will be very happy to do," replied the commander
very cheerfully. "If the bottom of the canal were a dead level, paved
like Broadway, and the depth of the canal were just twenty-six feet in
every place, with a perpendicular wall on each side, your theory would
be entirely correct, and the affirmative would have nothing more to say.
But the bottom is not paved, and there are no walls at the sides to
secure a uniform depth."

"Then the canal is not twenty-six feet deep, as the affirmative has laid
down the law," added Uncle Moses.

"That looks like a lawyer's quibble," replied the captain with a hearty
laugh. "You have opened the road for the retreat of the negative."

"The facts set forth by the speakers in our conference fail to be
facts," persisted the legal gentleman.

"The fact was given as a general truth that the depth of the canal is
twenty-six feet; but I think that no person as reasonable as Squire
Scarburn of Von Blonk Park would insist that it should be absolutely of
fully that depth in every part in order to comply with the general truth
of the statement. The courts don't rule in that way. I read lately of a
life insurance company which refused to pay a policy on the plea that
the holder had been a drunkard; but the court ruled that the use of
intoxicating liquors, or even an occasional over-indulgence, did not
constitute a drunkard."

"A wise ruling," added the squire.

"We call a person a good man; but even the affirmative does not insist
that he shall be absolutely without sin, stain, or fault in order to
entitle him to this designation."

"There would not be a single good man in that case," laughed the doctor.
"We admit the general truth that the canal is twenty-six feet deep."

"The canal has been dug out of loose sand for the most part, and it
would have been impossible to make it of uniform depth. Some of the
largest steamers in the world pass through the canal on their way to
India, China, and Australia. The Orient Line has the Ophir, a twin-screw
ship, about five hundred feet long, and others nearly as large.

"This big ditch across the isthmus has an average width of three hundred
feet, or two hundred less than the length of the Ophir. She could not,
therefore, get across the channel. There is a current in this water, and
fierce winds sometimes blow across it, and both of these affect the
inertia of the vessels. A comparatively small steamer like the
Guardian-Mother can be twisted about by these causes, and her bow or her
stern may catch on the sloping sides."

"You have made out your case, Captain Ringgold; and the moral is that
general truths are not invariably true," said Uncle Moses
good-naturedly.

"I only hope we shall not get aground," added Mrs. Belgrave.

"We are fairly started now, and we have Lake Menzaleh on one side, and a
low sandy plain, once covered with water, on the other," continued the
commander. "It is difficult to believe that the swamp and lagoon on the
starboard were once covered with fertile fields, watered by two of the
branches of the Nile, where wheat was raised in abundance, from which
Rome and other countries were supplied with food."

"What vast flocks of birds!" exclaimed Mrs. Woolridge.

"Those are flamingoes, just rising from their resting-place," added the
captain. "They were white just now as we looked at them; notice the
color of the inside of their wings, which are of a rose-tinted pink."

"But what became of the wheat-fields that were here?" asked Mrs.
Blossom, after they had observed the wild birds for a time.

"The sea broke in and covered the rich lands with sand and salt; and
there are towns buried there now."

"Goodness, gracious!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom. "There's another
steamer sailing on the land!"

"It appears to be so, but is not so," replied the commander.

"It is really so," added Mrs. Woolridge; and all the party gazed with
interest at the phenomenon.

"Only apparently so," the captain insisted.

"Please to explain it to us, Commodore," said Miss Blanche, who had long
ago applied this title to him.

"With pleasure, Miss Woolridge. It is the mirage, from the Latin
_miror_, to wonder, which appears to be what you are doing just now. The
steamer you see sailing along the shore is an optical illusion, a
reflection, and not a reality. Refraction, which is the bending of the
rays of light, produces this effect. If you look at a straight stick set
up in the water, it will appear to be bent, and this is caused by
refraction. The learned gentlemen present will excuse me for going back
to the primer of physics."

"We are quite satisfied to have the memory refreshed," replied the
doctor.

"The air around us is of different densities, which causes the rays of
reflection of our ship to be bent, sending the image up on the shore.
What sailors call 'looming,' often seen on our own shores, is produced
in the same way; and we often see an island, or a vessel, looming up
away above the water, from which it is sometimes separated by a strip of
sky. The mirage is often seen in the desert, with a whole caravan up in
the air, sometimes upside down.

"An object is often seen when at a considerable distance from it. In the
Arctic regions ships below the horizon, or hull down as sailors phrase
it, are revealed to other ships far distant by their images in the air.
From Hastings, on the English Channel, the coast of France, fifty miles
distant, from Calais to Dieppe, was once seen for about three hours. In
1854 a remarkable exhibition of the mirage was witnessed in the Baltic
Sea from the deck of a ship of the British navy. The whole English
fleet, consisting of nineteen sail, distant thirty miles from the point
of observation, were seen up in the air, upside down, as if they had
been hung up there by their keels.

"The Fata Morgana is a sort of mirage seen in the Strait of Messina. A
person standing on the shore sees the images of men, houses, ships, and
other objects, sometimes in the air, sometimes in the water, the
originals frequently magnified, passing like a panorama before the
beholder. The vapory masses above the strait may cause the pictures to
be surrounded by a colored line. When the peasants see it, they shout
'Morgana! Morgana!'"

"What does that word mean?" inquired Miss Blanche.

"The French from which it is derived is '_Morgaine la Fee_,' from a
sister of King Arthur of the Round Table, who had the reputation of
being a fairy, which is _fata_ in Italian."

"But what is that round table?" asked Mrs. Blossom very innocently.

"You must excuse me, my dear woman," replied the commander, looking at
his watch. "The Suez Canal is the subject before us, and I am talking
all the morning about other things."

"But it is collateral information, called out by the mirage; and the
illustrations you mentioned are quite new to me, for one," added Dr.
Hawkes.

"I like this kind of a conference, where the side matters are all
explained," said Mrs. Belgrave. "But it is a pity the boys are not here,
for they are not getting any of the cream of this conference so early in
the morning."

This was enough for the commander, coming from her; and he immediately
hastened to the stern of the ship, where he hailed the Maud, and ordered
her to come alongside. The four sailors who had attended the party in
the excursion to Cairo and up the Nile were directed to go on board of
the tender, and take the places of the "Big Four." The Guardian-Mother
had to go into a "siding" to permit a steamer to pass her at this point,
and the transfer was easily made.

However it may have been with the others, Louis Belgrave was glad to get
back to the ship, where he could sit by the side of Miss Blanche, and
answer the many questions she was continually asking; for she had an
inquiring mind. As she often remarked, Louis always seemed to know all
about everything. Perhaps if he had been with the party all the time, he
might have lost some portion of his reputation as a walking
encyclopædia; for when he was to be with her on any excursion, he took
extraordinary pains to post himself upon the topics likely to be
considered.

"You notice that post near the siding," said Captain Ringgold when the
party on the promenade had been re-enforced by the addition of the young
men, and the steamer began to move again. "That is one of the five
kilometre posts; and you will find them all the way to the Red Sea."

"What is a kilometre?" inquired Mrs. Woolridge.

"I have talked so much that I will ask Mr. Belgrave to explain it,"
replied the captain.

"It belongs to the French metrical system, which most people have come
to believe is the best in the world. I suppose everybody here knows what
a meridian is, for it was explained when we were talking about great
circles and geographical or sea miles. A meridian is a great circle
reaching around the earth, and passing through the equator and the
poles. A quadrant of a meridian is the quarter of a meridian, extending
from the equator to either pole. This is something that does not vary in
extent. A commission of five learned men, especially in mathematics, was
appointed by the French Academy, at the instance of the government, to
adopt a standard, and they made it a metre, which is the ten millionth
part of the quadrant of a meridian. The metre is 3.28 feet of our
measure, with five more decimal places after it.

"Ten metres make a decametre, and one thousand metres make a kilometre,
and ten thousand metres make a myriametre. Without bothering with all
these decimals, a kilometre is about five-eighths of a mile. Five
kilometres make three miles and one-tenth, which is the distance between
these posts," said Louis in conclusion.

"How came you to be so ready with your explanation, Mr. Belgrave?" asked
Miss Blanche, with a pleasant smile of approval.

"Captain Scott had talked the whole thing to us on board of the Maud
while he steered the steamer," replied Louis.

"But he knows five times as much about metres as I do; for I could not
have explained the meridian business," interjected the captain of the
Maud.

"Five miles an hour is slow travelling; but it enables us to see the
country, and also to talk about it," said Dr. Hawkes.

"If you don't mean that I am talking too much, Doctor"--

"I certainly do not mean that, and I hope you will keep it up,"
interposed the surgeon.

"Then I will say that the canal is run on the 'block system,' except on
the lakes, where the ships can go at full speed," added the commander.

"Where are the blocks? I don't see any," said Mrs. Blossom.

"They are all along the canal."

"I don't know what is meant by the block system," added Mrs. Belgrave.

"The railroads in England and the United States, or many of them, are
run by this method. The whole length of the road, or canal in this case,
is divided into short sections. On the railroad no train is permitted to
enter a section till all other trains are out of it, and a collision is
therefore impossible. The system is controlled by telegraph, by which
signals are ordered at either end of the division. On the canal the
director at Port Tewfik controls the movements of every ship on its
passage either way. These posts mark the sections. You will learn more
of it when we get to the other end of the canal."

The breakfast gong sounded at this time, and the party were not so eager
for knowledge as to pass over the morning meal.

CHAPTER XXII

THE CANAL AND ITS SUGGESTIONS

The tourists had been up long enough to be in excellent condition for
breakfast; and the Asiatic breezes from the south-east were cool and
refreshing, for they came from the mountains of the peninsula of Sinai,
where Moses had received the law from Heaven. There was something
inspiring in this thought to the minds of the more religious members of
the party when the commander announced the proximity of the sacred
mountain after he had asked the blessing.

"How far is Mount Sinai from where we are now?" asked Mrs. Woolridge.

"I cannot tell you just how far it is at this moment, for my charts are
in my cabin," replied Captain Ringgold. "We are not so near it as we
shall be later; but you will all see it after we get into the Red Sea.
We will defer the subject till that time; and I should not have
mentioned it if the south-east wind had not suggested it."

"I got a glance at an enormously big steamer ahead of us just as we were
leaving the promenade," added Mr. Woolridge. "She looked as large as
Noah's Ark, and appeared as though she was sailing over the land."

"Perhaps she was quite as large; for the pilot tells me that the Ophir
is just ahead of us," added the commander.

"What is the Ophir?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

"She is the largest of the Orient Line of steamers, and one of the
finest ships in the world. I remember that in Smith's Dictionary of the
Bible it says that the ark was larger than any British man-of-war; and
probably the statement is still correct, though by a narrower margin
than when the learned editor completed his work. The Empress of India
and two other barbette ships of her class in the English navy have a
displacement of 14,150 tons, and the last built Cunarder, the Lucania,
exceeds 13,000 tons. The ark was 525 feet long, reducing her 300 cubits
to our measure, which is about the length of the Ophir."

"I should like to go on board of one of those great British steamers
that sail to the other side of the earth," said Mrs. Belgrave.

"Possibly we may have an opportunity to do so at Ismaïlia or Suez. I
will ascertain when we arrive at these places," the captain replied to
the lady; whose simple requests and hints were law to the gallant
commander, who was a bachelor in the best possible preservation.

The company returned to the promenade without any unnecessary delay; for
all of them were interested in the canal itself, and in the sights to be
seen on its shores. The great steamer ahead of the Guardian-Mother was
much nearer than when the party went below, and it soon appeared that
she had "taken the ground." But it proved to be only a temporary hitch,
for she went ahead again before the American craft reached her.

"They are at work all the time on the canal to prevent these accidents,
and several changes have already been made in the original plan of the
canal," said the commander. "Monsieur Lesseps, who projected this
wonderful enterprise, and whose energy and perseverance carried it
through to its completion, made a voyage through the canal in the
Austral, one of the largest of the Orient Line, though not so large as
the one ahead of us, for the purpose of observing any defects. The
result has been that several improvements have been adopted which it is
expected will remove all the difficulties."

"Is Monsieur Lesseps still living, Captain?" inquired Captain Scott.

"He is at the age of eighty-seven this year. His success with the Suez
Canal led him to undertake the construction of the Panama Canal. The
company was formed with the prestige of the great engineer's success on
this isthmus, and the shares were readily sold. The work was begun; but
it was a more difficult undertaking than Suez, and the company suspended
payment four years ago. Speculators and 'boodlers' had 'monkeyed' with
the finances, and the vast scheme is a failure. Whether it will ever be
accomplished remains a question for the future."

"The poor old man and his son were dragged into the mire, and were even
committed to prison, though they were soon released," added Mr.
Woolridge. "I think he was a great man, and I was exceedingly sorry for
his misfortunes."

"He will never receive the honor he deserves on our side of the
Atlantic, I fear," added Captain Ringgold. "After rich and powerful
potentates had rejected the scheme, Lesseps still cherished it. Over
sixty years ago, when he was an employe in the office of the French
consul at Tunis, he was sent to Alexandria on business. Here he was
subjected to a residence of some time in quarantine. He was supplied
with books by the French consul there, and among them was Lapère's
Mémoire. The author was Napoleon's engineer, whose report that the level
of the two seas was not uniform, had set aside the schemes to connect
them by a canal. Lesseps considered his views, and some years after made
the acquaintance of Lieutenant Waghorn, favorably known in connection
with the Overland Route to India by the way of Egypt. The route by
descending the Euphrates River to the head of the Persian Gulf was also
considered. It appears, therefore, that Lesseps was cogitating his great
enterprise for nearly forty years before the work was completed."

"I cannot see the immense importance of this canal as you gentlemen
represent it; but I suppose it is because I am a woman," said Mrs.
Belgrave.

"It is of the greatest importance to England," replied Mr. Woolridge.
"Over twenty-five hundred British vessels went through the canal in
1888; for England has a vast empire in Asia, to say nothing of Australia
and other colonies in the East. Of other nations of Europe, France sent
two hundred and seventy-two ships through the canal, Holland one hundred
and twenty-four, Germany one hundred and twenty-two, and others less
than a hundred each."

"But how many American vessels went through?" asked Captain Scott.

"None were mentioned in the report I saw; and the number must have been
very few. The canal is of vastly less importance to the United States
than to England, France, Holland, and Spain, all of which have colonies
in the East. Since the war, our maritime commerce has been immensely
reduced, though our ships still make voyages to India, China, and
various ports of the East. Then the distance saved to our vessels would
be much less. Roughly estimated,--in fact, guessed at,--I should say
that the distance from New York to Ceylon, near the southern cape of
India, is four-fifths of that around Cape Good Hope. The heavy dues for
passing through the canal are an item, and it would not pay to save two
thousand five hundred miles out of twelve thousand five hundred."

"But the saving from London to Bombay is forty-four per cent," added Mr.
Woolridge. "From Marseilles to the same port it is nearly sixty per
cent. The United States 'is not in it'"--

"_Are_ not in it, papa," interposed Miss Blanche with a silvery laugh.

"No, my dear; _is_ not in it," returned the magnate, with a loving
smile. "I know the government is said to have ruled for the plural, but
I don't accept the ruling. Why, what does _E pluribus Unum_ mean if not
the singular number? For what did we fight the War of the Rebellion if
not to prove that the United States _is_ one government, and _are_ not
forty-four of them at the present moment."

"But the grammar, papa?" asked Blanche.

"The grammar is all right, my child. What are the news, Blanche? The
company is or are, just as you pay your money and take your choice,"
said the father, chucking the fair maiden under the chin.

"Our friend is quite right, and, so far as the canal is concerned, the
United States _is_ not in it," added the commander, laughing at the turn
the conference had taken.

"How far have we gone so far, Captain?" asked Miss Blanche.

"Ten o'clock," he replied, consulting his watch. "We have been moving at
this snail's pace for five hours, and made twenty-five miles, or forty
kilometres. In five more we shall come to El Kantara, where the caravan
route from Egypt into Asia crosses the canal."

"Do the camels have to swim across the canal?" asked Mrs. Blossom.

"They do not; but it cost the canal company some money to save them the
trouble of doing so," replied the captain. "El Kantara means 'the
bridge;' and there used to be one across the outlet of a lake there. The
bridge was removed by the company, and a ferry substituted for it."

"I suppose all vessels have to go through the canal in the daytime,"
said Mrs. Woolridge.

"Not at all; the system of signals is arranged for day or night. Vessels
with an electric search-light or projector which will show up an object
three-quarters of a mile ahead are allowed to navigate the canal at
night. We could do so if so disposed; but we wish to see the country.
The channel is lighted at night by illuminated buoys."

"What sort of boys?" inquired Mrs. Blossom, who was struggling to grow
wise, and had a long distance to travel in that direction.

"Iron ones," answered the captain.

"Iron boys!" exclaimed the good lady. "How could they point out the way
through the canal?"

"They swim in the water, and the pilots understand the language they
speak," said the commander gravely.

"Iron boys that swim and speak!" ejaculated the excellent lady. "I think
you must be fooling with us, Captain Ringgold."

"You have put your foot in it again!" exclaimed Mrs. Belgrave in a
whisper. "Don't say another word!"

"A buoy is a floating body in the shape of two inverted cones united at
their bases, made of copper or plate iron. They are used all over the
world to mark the bounds of channels, sometimes with fog-bells on them,
rung by the action of the waves," continued the commander. "They are
moored to the bottom here as elsewhere, and have a gas-light burning on
them all the time."

"A gas-light!" exclaimed Mrs. Woolridge; "where is the gas-house?"

"There are several of them on the canal, and not one for each buoy,
which is filled with gas, and contains a supply that will last for six
weeks. Some folks who never went to sea suppose a lighthouse is to give
light on the water, when they are only to mark certain localities, and
to give ranges to navigators. These buoys are for the same purpose, and
not to light up the canal. But here is El Kantara."

"I think you said this place was on the road to Syria," said the
magnate. "People who go to the Holy Land from Egypt, and most of them do
go that way, take a steamer from Alexandria to Joppa, or Jaffa as it is
now generally called, and do not go by camel-back over this road."

"They do not; but they may go over it at some time in the near future,"
added Professor Giroud. "The Egypto-Syrian Railroad has been projected,
and it is to pass over this route."

The travellers found quite a village at El Kantara, with a hotel, and
other places for the refreshment of travellers. Passengers from the
steamers seldom land here. The ship proceeded on her way, and the party
caught a glimpse at a boat-load of camels crossing the canal. From this
place to Fort Said the course had been perfectly straight through Lake
Menzaleh, which ends here.

"If you will look to the left," said the commander after a time, "you
will see a considerable body of water. That is the upper part of Lake
Balah, through which the canal passes. About a mile and a half distant
is a lot of sandstone rocks like that of the Memnon statues. They appear
to belong to an altar, and the inscription informs the visitor who can
read it that they were parts of a temple erected by Seti I. in honor of
his father, Ramses I., and completed by Ramses II., his son. There may
have been a city here, but there are no signs of it now."

The steamer passed through the Balah Lakes; for there are several of
them, containing some islands. The canal is protected by high banks of
yellow sand, and beyond is the desert, with hills in the distance.
Coming out of the lakes, the canal passed through a deep cutting, which
was the worst place encountered in doing the work. It is the highest
ground on the isthmus, averaging fifty-two feet above the sea; and a
ridge of this territory is from seventy to one hundred feet high,
through which the digging had to be carried. There are some curves here,
the canal is the narrowest in all its course, and vessels more
frequently get aground here than in any other portion. The road to Syria
passed over this elevation, which is called "the causeway" in Arabic.

The Ophir went through without sticking in the sand, and the
Guardian-Mother was likely to do as well. A solitary mosque and a châlet
of the Khedive were passed, and the ship was approaching Lake Timsah
when the gong sounded for lunch, and the air of the desert had given the
tourists an appetite which caused them to evacuate the promenade with
hasty steps.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MYSTERIOUS ARAB IN A NEW SUIT

The cabin party of the Guardian-Mother were on the promenade in time to
observe the entrance into Lake Timsah. It is near the seventy-five
kilometre post from Port Said, or half way through the canal to the head
of the Gulf of Suez, the most northern portion of the Red Sea. The city
of Suez is several miles to the south-west of this point; for Lesseps,
for some reason said to be political, avoided the old town, and carried
the canal to the other side of the inlet, and below it.

Lake Timsah has an area of about six square miles. It is not a deep body
of water, and the canal had to be built through it as through Lake
Menzaleh. Its water is now of a pale blue, very pretty to look at.
Before any work was done here, it was a mere pond, filled with reeds;
but it has been cleaned out and made more healthy for the surrounding
country.

On its northern shore is the town of Ismaïlia, having about two thousand
inhabitants, which has become a place of some importance. The railroad
from Cairo is extended to it by a branch, the main line following the
canal to Suez. It has a couple of hotels; and its principal square, on
which the best one is situated, has the name of Place Champollion,
showing that the French remember their learned men.

While the canal was in process of construction, Ismaïlia was the centre
of operations. It was handsomely laid out, not unlike the city of
Washington, which is one of the handsomest in the world; but, like the
new places in our great West, it was built in a hurry, under the
pressure of a drive of business, and the sanitary conditions were
neglected. The important fresh-water canal, which is near the railroad
all the way from the Nile, furnishes the only drinking-water of this
town and of Suez; but the sewers of the new town had no other outlet.

Of course the town was soon invaded by fever, which caused it to be
deserted; and it has never recovered its former prosperity, though not
wholly for this reason, for the completion of the canal destroyed its
business basis. Ismaïlia was the focal point of the great ceremonials at
the opening of the canal. The Empress Eugénie of France, the Emperor
Frederick of Germany, then crown-prince, and other noted persons, were
present; and the celebration is said to have cost the Khedive twenty
million dollars.

The town has improved somewhat of late; the viceroy's château, which had
become much dilapidated, has been restored, and portions of the desert,
irrigated from the canal, have been transformed into fine gardens.
Though the climate is agreeable and the air dry, it is not likely to
become a pleasure resort. A couple of small steamers run from this port
to Port Said, while the railroad connects it with Suez.

The steamer remained a couple of hours at the station, as did the Ophir;
and the commander obtained permission for the ladies to pay her a visit.
She is a magnificent specimen of naval architecture. Her saloon,
staterooms, drawing-room on the upper deck, were magnificent apartments,
most luxuriously furnished. Her appointments for second-class passengers
were extensive and very comfortable, far better than on many Atlantic
steamers.

The ubiquitous donkey, and especially the donkey-boy, were here; and the
"Big Four," with the exception of Louis Belgrave, who attended Miss
Blanche on the visit to the Ophir, accompanied by Don, went on a frolic
to the town. They made a great noise and waked up the place, but they
committed no excesses. When they returned to the ship, they found Louis
and Miss Blanche showing the captain and the surgeon of the big steamer
over the Guardian-Mother. The beautiful young lady had evidently
fascinated them, and they had been extremely polite to the party,
perhaps on her account. They appeared to be interested in the
steam-yacht, and expressed their belief that nothing more comfortable
and elegant floated.

The steamers got under way again, and proceeded through one of the two
channels through the blue lake. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs to
the officers and passengers of the Ophir; and their greetings were
heartily reciprocated, for the American party had plainly made an
impression upon the English people, partly perhaps by the style in which
they travelled, but probably more by the beauty of the ladies, with Miss
Blanche as princess, and the others were under forty and still
good-looking. The lake is only five miles long, and the steamers soon
passed into the cut at the south of it.

"Along this region many ruins have been found, some of them of Persian
structures," said the commander after the ship had left the lake.
"Pharaoh-Necho, 600 B.C., built a canal from Suez to Lake Timsah, with
gates, which Herodotus describes, and informs us that the vessels of the
period went through it in four days."

"I wish you would tell us something about Herodotus, Captain, for his
name has been frequently mentioned in Egypt," said Mrs. Woolridge.

"And about Diodorus and Strabo, also mentioned in the lectures," added
the magnate. "I have forgotten all that I ever knew about these
gentlemen."

"I am in the same boat, Captain," the doctor responded.

"I shall leave those subjects to the professor. But we are approaching
some objects of interest, and we will defer the matter to another time,"
replied the commander. "Do you see a white dome on the starboard? That
is the tomb of Shekh Ennedek; and it is rather a picturesque affair here
in the midst of the desert."

"Was he a fighting character?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

"Not at all; far from it. He was a wealthy Arab chief. He made the
pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the duty of every faithful Mohammedan; and
he seems to have been greatly impressed by it, for he gave his cattle
and his lands to the poor, and spent the rest of his life on the
greenish territory we have just passed through, in religious
meditation."

"He was a good man if he was a Mohammedan," added the lady.

"We don't believe that all the good people in the world belong to our
church," added the captain. "Do you all remember who Miriam was?"

More than half the party could not remember.

"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as a
young girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The land
next south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called Gebel
Maryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; but
she found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she was
afflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbers
xii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp seven
days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut
out from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot as
the place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name of
Maryam."

"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish you
would tell us more Bible stories."

"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas were
connected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latter
extended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander,
without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of this
supposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in the
Red Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through Lake
Timsah.

"We are approaching what is called the Serapeum," said the captain.

"What! more of them here? I thought we had used up all the Serapeums,"
said the magnate with a laugh.

"The present one is of a different sort," answered the commander. "But
the ruins found in this vicinity were supposed to belong to a Serapeum
such as several we have seen on the Nile; but Lepsius says they could
not have been a part of a temple to Serapis, but were monuments built on
the ancient canal by Darius.

"It is high ground here, comparatively speaking; and you observe that
the cutting of the water-way is through a rocky formation, with rather
high banks on each side. There is quite a little village above; and, as
it is getting dark, we shall pass the night here in the siding-basin."

"Who is that man on the forecastle of the Maud?" asked Captain Scott as
the little steamer came into the basin.

"I don't know," replied Captain Ringgold. "I had not noticed him before.
He looks like an Arab, though he is taller than most of them."

A flight of steps ascended to the top of the embankment at the station
of the little town. The Maud passed close to them on her way to her
berth for the night. Abreast of them the Arab on the forecastle leaped
ashore, but made a gesture as though the movement had given him pain. He
went up the steps and disappeared.

"Who was that man, Knott?" asked the captain when the seaman came on
board of the ship.

"I don't know, sir; I called upon him to give an account of himself as
we were crossing Lake Timsah; but he could not understand me, pointed to
his mouth, and shook his head, meaning that he could not speak English.
He did not do any harm, so I let him alone; for Don was running the
engine, and I did not like to call him from his duty. He kept his face
covered up with a sort of veil, and would not say anything. I thought I
would let him alone till we came to a stopping-place, and I could report
to you."

"When did he go on board of the Maud?" asked the captain.

"I don't know, sir. The first time I saw him was on the lake. Spinner
had the wheel, Don was in the engine-room, and the rest of the ship's
company were on the upper deck looking at the sights. I inquired, but
no one had seen him."

"Did you ever see him before?"

"I don't think I ever did, sir. He had on what looked like a new suit of
Arab togs, and he kept his face covered up, as I said."

If Captain Ringgold was not troubled, he was perplexed. He had observed
the stranger distinctly as he went up the steps, but he could not
identify him as a person he had ever seen before. Of course it came into
his head at once that the tall Arab was Captain Mazagan, and he said as
much to Scott.

"We left him at the hotel at Port Said; how could he be here?" asked the
captain of the Maud.

"He must have smuggled himself on board of the little steamer when we
were at Ismaïlia; for he was first seen out in the lake."

"How could he have been at Ismaïlia?" Scott inquired.

The commander went to his cabin, and looked over his "Bradshaw," in
which he found that a steamer left Port Said at seven o'clock every
morning, and arrived at Ismaïlia at noon. It was possible that Mazagan
had come by this conveyance; and he gave Scott the information.

"Probably he stopped at the station while we were on board of the Ophir,
or your party had gone to the town," said the commander. "It was easy
enough for him to stow himself away in the cabin of the Maud while no
one but Philip was on board of her."

"I supposed we had got to the end of the pirate when I saw him trotted
on shore to the hotel," added Scott.

"So did I, though he made some huge but very indefinite threats when I
saw him last," mused the commander. "But why did he go on board of the
Maud, when he could have gone to Suez by the railroad?"

"I don't see," replied Scott. "He is a Moor, and must be as revengeful
as his 'noble master,' as he calls him. It was the Maud that did his
business for him, and I was at the wheel of her when she smashed into
the side of the Fatimé. I only hope his grudge is against me and not
against Louis Belgrave."

"You mention the idea I had in my mind when I asked why he went on board
of the Maud, Captain Scott," said the commander. "Perhaps it is a lucky
chance that I sent for the 'Big Four' so that they might hear all that
was said about the scenes through which we were passing."

"You mean that it may have been a lucky chance for Louis or for me; but
I believe it is a luckier chance for the pirate, for I think I should
have thrown him overboard if I had seen him on our deck," said Scott.

"Then there would probably have been a fight on board of the Maud, and
work made for our surgeon in your party. It may have been lucky for all
that you were called on board of the ship. But we must take care that
he does not resume his voyage in the morning with us."

Captain Ringgold took all necessary precautions. A watch was kept on
board of both vessels; and when they started on the remainder of the
trip through the canal in the morning, nothing had been seen or heard of
Mazagan. It was agreed that nothing had better be said about the matter;
and when the cabin party, with the "Big Four," gathered on the promenade
at five o'clock in the morning, not one of them, except the big and the
little captain, suspected that an enemy was near, if the stranger really
was Mazagan, of which they could not be sure.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TOY OF THE TRANSIT MANAGER

The village of Serapeum has had an existence of over twenty years; and
its pleasant little gardens looked very inviting in the fresh morning
air to the members of the cabin party as they took their places on the
promenade, which had come to be about as well defined as their seats at
the table. The air was soft and agreeable; and after their refreshing
sleep the tourists were in excellent condition to enjoy the continued
passage through the canal, of which, however, there were only about
forty-one miles left, and the commander expected to be at Suez by noon.

Captain Ringgold had not said anything to any person except Scott about
the mysterious stranger with a veil over his face; but the ship and her
consort had been well guarded over night, and a search for stowaways was
made when the morning watch came on duty. Not even an Arab tramp could
be found, and the commander was confident the tall Mussulman had not
again found a hiding-place on board of either vessel.

"We shall soon have a change of scene," said Captain Ringgold, as he
joined the party on the promenade. "We are still in the desert, though
the fresh-water canal makes a streak of green along its banks, for it
extends to Suez, and even across the bay to the entrance of the canal."

"The prospect is not very exciting just now," added Mr. Woolridge, as
the screw began to turn, and the ship moved away from her moorings.

"We shall come to the larger of the Bitter Lakes in less than an hour,"
replied the captain. "There is nothing very exciting about them; but
Brugsch identifies these lakes with the Marah of the Bible, though
others do not agree with him. In Exodus xv. 23 we read," and the speaker
took a paper from his pocket: "'And when they came to Marah, they could
not drink of the waters ... for they were bitter: therefore the name of
it was called Marah.' But the bitter spring which Moses sweetened by
casting into it a tree is in the peninsula of Sinai."

"Shall we go there?" asked Mrs. Blossom, beginning to be excited, as she
always was when scriptural subjects came up in connection with the
journey; and she had studied the Bible more than any other book, and
probably more than all others combined.

"At the proper time I shall have something to say about Mount Sinai, and
I hope to place you in a position to see it in the distance; but at
present we are not prepared to consider the matter. You can now see
through the cutting an expanse of water, which is the great basin, as
the larger lake is called.

"As stated before, the Red Sea formerly extended to Lake Timsah, over
forty miles farther than now, and the lakes before us were then a part
of the sea. The deepest water was twenty-four to forty feet below the
Mediterranean, with a heavy crust of salt on the bottom, though the
smaller basin required a great deal of dredging. In the spring of 1869
the Prince and Princess of Wales were present in this locality, and took
part in the ceremonial of 'letting in the waters.'"

"'Wails for the multitude of Egypt,'" added Uncle Moses.

"Ezekiel, chapter and verse forgotten," replied the commander.

"Thirty-two, eighteen," said the bulky lawyer.

"Are there any whales in the lake?" asked Felix.

"You can fish for them, my lad; but the particular Waleses of whom I
spoke were not 'in it,'" continued the captain. "These Wales did not
spout, though they probably said something; but they let in the water
instead of blowing it out, as respectable whales do at sea. The waters
of the two seas came together, and notwithstanding the joyousness of the
occasion, the meeting was not altogether amiable and pleasant at first.
Each representative of the different bodies seemed to pitch into the
other, and the onslaught created a great commotion for a time. If they
were ever united before in the distant past, they appeared to have
forgotten all about it.

"The war was short and decisive, and the waters soon settled down into a
peaceful condition, as you will find them to-day. They have apparently
shaken hands, and accepted the task of promoting the commerce of the
world. But here we come to the great basin. The lake is about six miles
wide. Here is the lighthouse, and there is another at the other end of
it, each of them sixty-five feet high."

The shores of the lake are flat and sandy, and the water is of a bluish
green hue. There is a well-defined channel through it. As there is no
longer any danger of washing the banks of the canal, steamers increase
their speed, and the Guardian-Mother made the next twenty miles in less
than two hours. As the captain had promised, it was a change of scene,
and it was very agreeable to the party. In the distance could be seen
the Geneffeh range of hills, which were a relief in the landscape from
the desert. In them are rich quarries of marble and limestone which are
profitably worked.

The passage through the canal had become monotonous to the travellers
after they had passed through the lakes, for it was a desert on both
sides. Shortly after, the water-way was cut through sandstone, and after
that the soil was clay, or a mixture of it with lime; but the last part
of the course was through depths of sand again. The tide on the Red Sea
rises from five to seven feet, and its flow extends about four miles up
the canal.

"Looking ahead, you can see an expanse of water, which means that we are
coming to the end of our canal travel," said the commander. "I suppose
no one will be sorry for it; for we have had all our social
arrangements as usual, and there has been something to see and much to
learn all the way."

"It has not been at all like my canal travel at home," added Uncle
Moses, who was the oldest person on board of the ship by one month, by
which time Dr. Hawkes was his junior, and they were only fifty-four. "I
went from Syracuse to Oswego by a canal boat when I was a young man. The
trip was in the night, and I slept on a swinging shelf, held up by
ropes; and we were bumping much of the time in the locks so that I did
not sleep so well as I did last night. But what water have we ahead,
Captain?"

"It is an arm of the Gulf of Suez, which is itself one of the two great
arms of the Red Sea."

"It appears to be well armed," said Uncle Moses, who could be guilty of
a pun on extreme provocation.

"Like yourself, it is provided with two arms, but it does not shoot with
them," replied the captain. "On our left are the ruins of Arsinoe, which
was an ancient port, once called Crocodilopolis; and, by the way, Lake
Timsah was once Crocodile Lake, and doubtless the saurians formerly
sported in its waters."

"About Arsinoe?" suggested the professor.

"Probably you know more about it than I do, Professor."

"I know little except that it was a commercial city of Egypt, built by
Ptolemy II. The name is that of several females distinguished in one way
or another in the ancient world, and the word is usually written with a
diæresis over the final _e_, so that it is pronounced as though it were
written Arsinoey. The city thrived for a time, and was the emporium of
eastern Egypt; but the perils of the navigation in the north of the Red
Sea diverted the trade into other channels, and the place went to decay.
It was named by Ptolemy after his sister, who was married at sixteen to
the aged king of Thrace. There is a bloody story connected with her
life, which I will not repeat; but in the end she fled to the protection
of her brother in Egypt, and after the fashion of that age and country,
he made her his wife."

"You have not been in Asia any of you yet, or even as near that
continent before as you are at this moment," continued the commander, as
the ship passed out of the canal into the gulf.

"I thought we had been in Asia," interposed Mrs. Belgrave.

"Certainly we have," added half a dozen others.

"Isn't Scutari in Asia, Captain?" asked the lady.

"To be sure it is, and we all went over there from Constantinople,"
replied the commander. "I had forgotten that, and you are not so
innocent as I began to make it appear. But you have Asia on one side and
Europe on the other."

"Well, we had that on the Bosporus, when we made that trip to the Black
Sea in the Maud," added the lady, who seemed to be pleased because she
had caught the captain in a blunder.

"Then you have been in all the grand divisions of the earth except South
America, and I have no doubt you will go there before we come to the
finish of this voyage. Here is the station; and you observe that there
is a bridge across the canal by which the traveller can proceed to Suez,
which you can see upon the point on the other side. The donkeys and
donkey-boys abound here as everywhere in Egypt, and boats can be
obtained to ferry you over to the town. But as we shall remain here a
day or two, I think we had better go into the basin. We can then go
where we please in the Maud."

It was lunch time when the two vessels had been secured, and the party
adjourned to the cabin. As soon as the meal was disposed of they
returned to the upper deck, and seated themselves in the arm-chairs, for
there was much to be seen. Port Tewfik is the proper name of the place
at the station, but most of the people are Frenchmen, and they all call
it Terreplein.

"At this station the office of the canal company, which you can see from
the deck, is located. It has a garden in front of it, on an avenue
adorned with lebbec trees. You see that tall tower with balls and flags
on it; and it is from this point that all the movements of vessels in
the canal are controlled. But I think we had better land, and see it for
ourselves."

The company went on shore, and proceeded to promenade the environs. One
of the first things that attracted their attention was a colossal bronze
bust of Lieutenant Waghorn, who had been presented to them by Captain
Ringgold in one of his talks. It was erected to his memory by the canal
company, and is a graceful tribute of the French to the originator of
the overland route. The inscription was in French, and Louis translated
it for the benefit of the observers.

"But I cannot translate the bass-relief on the bronze," he added.

"That represents Lieutenant Waghorn embarking with the mails in an open
boat at Suez, an incident that actually occurred. It is said that this
gentleman, after spending the best years of his life in his efforts to
establish a quicker route between England and her vast colonies, died in
poverty in London in 1850; but I hope it is not true," the commander
explained. "We will now apply for admission to the office of the
manager."

The permission was obtained, and the party ascended to the upper room of
the building. Monsieur Chartrey, the superintendent of the transit
department of the canal, was very polite to them, and explained
everything to them in English. On a low table which occupied all one
side of the apartment was what looked like a metal trough about fifteen
feet long. A model of this apparatus was exhibited in England, and there
it was called "the toy," a name which is still retained.

On a shelf above the table are about fifty models of ships, each bearing
the flag of some nation. The toy is a model of the canal, with its
sidings, stations, and the lakes. When a ship enters the canal at
either end, a little ship is placed in the relative position it
occupies; and when one sails out of it, its representative in the trough
is removed. All the stations are connected with this office by
telegraph, just as the railroads are controlled in modern times; and
when a vessel passes from one section, or block, it is reported to the
manager. A man is always watching; and as news comes in, he makes the
proper changes in the model ships. Where a steamer is to tie up for the
night is ordered from this office.

Monsieur Chartrey was very heartily thanked for his courtesy and
kindness, and the party left to look at the docks, quays, and basins of
Terreplein; but they were precisely the same as they had seen in various
ports of Europe, especially at Havre. The commander had ordered the Maud
to be in readiness for a trip, and it was decided to spend the rest of
the afternoon at Suez.

The first question the captain put on his return to the ship was as to
whether anything had been seen of the mysterious Arab stranger; for the
officers had been cautioned not to admit any person on board. Mr.
Gaskette had remained on board of the Maud, and made the same report.
With the four seamen who had attended the company up the Nile on board,
and with the second officer and Don, the little steamer left her
landing-place, provided with a pilot, and steamed by the channel over to
the city of the desert, as it has been called.

CHAPTER XXV

A VISIT TO THE SPRINGS OF MOSES

The utility of the Maud was fully demonstrated at Suez, if there had
been any doubt of it before, as a tender, and Captain Ringgold
recognized it especially at this time; for the question of taking her
out of the water, and giving her a place on the upper deck, had been
referred to this point in the voyage, and it was yet to be settled.

Port Ibrahim is the walled basin south-west of Port Tewfik, or
Terreplein as the French call it, extending out to the deep water of the
Gulf of Suez. The shores are bordered with a shoal in every part. To a
practical person the motive of De Lesseps in avoiding the city of Suez
was probably to strike the water at the deepest point, rather than
political.

The party took their places in the standing-room of the Maud, which had
been prepared for their reception. The "Big Four" were again in their
element, though the pilot had everything his own way. A channel
describes about a quarter of a circle from the deep water and the very
end of the canal to the north side of the city, in which there is depth
enough for the smaller class of vessels engaged in its commerce.

Most of these crafts were dhows, similar to the felucca with which the
party had become familiar in the Archipelago, and the boys observed one
just astern of them with great interest. They are used on the Malabar
Coast in the East Indies as well as in the Red Sea, where it is called a
_baggala_, though dhow is the more common name in the far East. They are
over two hundred tons burden, and of all sizes below that. They have
been used for commerce and piracy, which is also true of the felucca of
the Mediterranean.

"She sails like the wind," said Captain Scott, after they had looked the
craft over.

"She is bigger than the Samothraki, whose acquaintance we made in
Pournea Bay," added Morris.

"I have read something of the craft in stories about the Malays; and a
craft of that sort suggests piracy to me every time, especially since
our experience in the Archipelago," replied Scott.

"There are no pirates up here," said the pilot with a laugh, for he
spoke English and understood all that was said.

"What do those dhows bring up here?" asked Louis.

"Coffee from the ports of Arabia, spices, gums, senna, rose-leaves, and
other drugs and perfumes," replied the pilot.

"What becomes of these articles then?"

"Some of them are used in Suez; but most of them go by the railroad to
Cairo, or other parts of Egypt, and I suppose some of them get to
Europe and America."

"They are all rather costly merchandise, and one of those dhows can
carry a big freight of them," added Louis, as he went aft, for Miss
Blanche was there.

The pilot brought the Maud up to the custom-house quay; and the dhow,
which was not far behind the little steamer, came alongside the pier
near her. The company landed, and proceeded to do the town. The pilot
appeared to be a Frenchman, and he volunteered to act as a guide for the
strangers. They found the streets very narrow, and not in the best
condition. They passed over to the south side of the city, where they
obtained a fine view of the Gulf of Suez.

"Across the water you see the Ataka Mountains, about 2,700 feet high;
and sometimes they show the colors of the garnet and amethyst. A fine
view is obtained from the top of them, but it would give you a hard
climb," said the guide. "On the other side of the bay it is Asia, Arabia
Petræa."

"We shall go down to the Springs of Moses to-morrow," added the
commander. "Are you a pilot in that direction?"

"In all directions, Captain," answered the pilot. "Here is the Hotel
Suez quite near us, if you wish to visit it."

"We have no occasion to do so."

"It is a first-class house, fitted up in English style, and kept by a
German."

"What is the price there by the day?" asked the captain from curiosity.

"Sixteen shillings for the best fare."

"Four dollars a day."

"But they have two prices. I have been to New York, and over some of
America, as I have over the rest of the world, and I know your money.
For people like yourself, who want the best, breakfast or tiffin is one
dollar."

"Breakfast or what?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

"Tiffin," the commander explained. "It means luncheon, and is used by
English people in India."

"Dinner a dollar and a half. The rooms are at different prices. For the
second-class fare the prices are just half as much as the first."

"There are a couple of the waiters," said Mrs. Woolridge. "They are
nice-looking men, not very black."

"They come from India, and make better servants than Arabs," added the
guide.

"How slender their forms, and what delicate features they have!"
exclaimed the New York lady.

"You are likely to see a good many of them in the course of the next
month or two," suggested the captain, as the walk was continued in the
town. "The houses are about the same as they were in other parts of
Egypt, and they have the same ornamented lattices behind which the
ladies inside can see you without being seen."

The party looked into the quarters of the Arabian sailors, consisting
of low hovels, but did not enter. The population of the town is now
about 15,000. Before the time of the canal, it was an Arab village of
1,500, with low mud shanties. It was like the desert around it; for no
water was there to brighten the foliage, if there was any, for not a
tree or a plant was to be seen. The water used was of poor quality,
brought from the Springs of Moses by camels and donkeys. It was a
poverty-stricken place. But the opening of the fresh-water canal from
the Nile vivified everything, and vegetation has come into being since
this event.

The party examined this canal, to which the place is so much indebted
for its present appearance, as well as no little of its prosperity. It
is six and a half feet above the level of the Red Sea, and its flow into
the conduits for the supply of the city, as well as the waste into the
sea, is regulated by a large lock, with gates. Near this they found the
camel-camp, and not less than five hundred of these animals were there
at the time; and the pilot said he had seen as many as a thousand of
them there at once. They form the caravans to and from Arabia and Egypt,
as well as into Syria.

The tourists climbed a little hill near the château of the Khedive, from
which they obtained a fine view of the surroundings, which included
parts of Asia and of Africa. This elevation is said to be the site of
the ancient Clysma, a fortified place, built to protect the ancient
canal of Darius. The party, especially the "Cupids," were beginning to
be fatigued; and the guide conducted them to the pier, which is a
notable feature of the locality.

"This pier is a mile and three-quarters in length, and reaches over to
Port Ibrahim, conveying there a conduit from the fresh-water canal,"
said the pilot in a perfunctory manner, as though he had had
considerable experience as a guide. "It is forty-eight feet wide, and is
built of artificial stone, like the great piers at Fort Said. It is
erected on a sand-bank, which curves around in the shape you see the
pier. The land you observe at the end of it, about fifty acres of it,
was made out of the earth dug out of the canal. The building you see
near the shore is a mosque; and there are several others. We will walk
along the shore to the little steamer."

The travellers were occasionally assailed by a mob of donkey-boys; but
no notice of them was taken, and they reached the Hotel Suez near the
landing-place. The guide pointed out an island near the shore on which
was located the English Cemetery. There are at the west of the town an
English and a French hospital. The party embarked, and the guide went to
the pilot house. In a few minutes more they were on board of the ship.

It was not yet dinner time, and the arrangements for the trip to the
Springs of Moses were made. In the evening, attended by the pilot, Felix
and Captain Scott went over to the town again, instructed to visit the
hotels and ascertain, if they could, whether the veiled Arab was
lodging at any of them. While they were absent the company in the cabin
reviewed the pilgrimage of the Israelites, and the events which led to
the receiving of the Law by Moses on Mount Sinai, in which the commander
conducted the inquiry, and read many passages from Exodus and Numbers.

About ten o'clock in the evening Captain Scott and Felix reported the
result of their mission. The pilot was well acquainted with the keeper
of the Hotel Suez, and the information desired had been readily
obtained. A person answering to the description, though he wore no veil,
had come to the hotel. He was suffering much pain from a lame shoulder,
and had gone to the French hospital for treatment. They had inquired
about "Monsieur Abdelkhalik," as he had given his name at the hotel, and
were informed that he was "comfortable," which was all the attendants
would say.

The commander sent for Dr. Hawkes, and told him about his former
patient. Mazagan had been very imprudent and even reckless, and his
present condition was simply what might have been expected, was the
doctor's reply. He might be out again in a week, not sooner, and might
not for a month. The captain was satisfied there would be no further
movement on the part of the pirate while he remained at Suez.

After breakfast the party embarked again in the Maud. Four sailors in
charge of Knott were sent on board, and the first cutter of the ship was
taken in tow, to be used in making the landing. The men remained on the
forecastle, and the pilot and Knott were already good friends. But the
"Big Four" were requested to stay with the party at the stern. The
little steamer went out of the basin and down the canal to the bay. As
soon as she came into the open water, the commander took the floor.

"On your right is Africa; on your left is Asia. You have probably had
enough of Egypt, and now we will confine our attention to Asia; and we
have pleasant Asiatic breezes from the east this morning. The country on
your left is Arabia, and nearest to you is the Peninsula of Sinai. It
has the Gulf of Suez on its west shore, and the Gulf of Akaba on its
east coast. I spoke to you of Brugsch's theory that the Israelites
journeyed east, with some diversions by divine command, till they came
to the Sarbonic Lake, in which he said that Pharaoh and his host
perished.

"Now you are on that portion of the Red Sea where it is more generally
believed that the fugitives crossed and Pharaoh's army was ingulfed. The
king heard that the wanderers had not passed the fortifications on the
isthmus, and he believed they were 'entangled in the land.' Then he
began the pursuit, with 'the six hundred chosen chariots.' The
Israelites fled before him, and crossed the waters in the manner
described in the Scriptures.

"Setting aside the miracle of the parted waves, there are still doubting
critics who affirm that they crossed the gulf at low tide on these
sands where the pier is built, as was frequently done by caravans before
the canal was built. The Egyptians continued the pursuit, reaching the
gulf before the tide turned, and attempted to follow them; but a strong
south-west gale sprang up, driving the waters furiously before it, to
the utter destruction of the whole army and its chariots.

"But I accept the narrative as it is written (Exodus xiv.); and I should
like to argue the case with any one who takes the view of Brugsch, or
other critics who try to explain the miracle on natural grounds."

The pilot anchored the Maud as near the shore as the depth would permit,
and the party were taken ashore by the sailors in the cutter. The
springs are about a mile from the landing, and the walk through the sand
of the desert was trying to the ladies and to the fat gentlemen. The
pilot acted as guide.

"Ain Musa, as it is called, is an oasis a mile and a quarter in
circumference. As you see, it is covered with date-palms, tamarisks, and
acacias, and everything grows luxuriantly," the Frenchman began. "The
Arabs who live in the mud hovels you see, raise fine vegetables here;
and, like all Arabs, they will expect a bakshish."

The springs were found to consist of several pools of rather muddy
water. The largest of them, shut in by an old wall, is said to be the
one called forth by the rod of Moses from the rock; but the tradition
is accommodating, and, if you choose, it is the one whose bitter waters
were sweetened by the casting in of the tree.

The party had brought a luncheon with them, and it was served by Sparks
at the usual hour. They had a delightful time under the trees, and
listened to an explanation by the professor of the natural formation of
the springs. In the middle of the afternoon they embarked, and returned
to the ship in the canal basin.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE VARIOUS ROUTES TO MOUNT SINAI

The next day was Sunday; and, in accordance with the custom from the
beginning of the voyage, no unnecessary work was required to be done by
any person, and the business of sight-seeing was discontinued. But all
were at liberty to observe the day in their own way. Religious services
were conducted by the commander on the deck or in the cabin, which were
usually attended by all. Most of them went to church on shore when it
was convenient; but going to see the edifice or the pictures they did
not regard as a devotional exercise.

It was a warm and pleasant day for the seventeenth of January, in
latitude 30°, about the same as New Orleans or the northern part of
Florida; and the service was held in Conference Hall, as the carpeted
section of the promenade deck had come to be called. The captain began
the exercises by reading selections from Exodus xv.:--

"Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and
spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The
Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my
God, and I will prepare him a habitation; my father's God, and I will
exalt him.... Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea:
his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have
covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone."

Several "Gospel Hymns" were sung, and the sermon read by the commander
was as nearly fitted to the surroundings as any he could find in his
collection. After the service Mrs. Blossom struck up "Turn back
Pharaoh's Army, Hallelu!" in which those who knew this Jubilee Singers'
melody joined. The conversation that followed naturally turned in the
direction of the Peninsula of Sinai, which they could see from the deck.

"Are we going to Mount Sinai, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave, in
a rather decided tone for her, as though she intended to have the
question settled this time.

A great deal had been said by the ladies from Von Blonk Park in relation
to this proposed excursion; but for some reason of his own the commander
had not yet given a definite answer. They all attended the same church
at home, and the captain and the two ladies were members of it. While
the others of the party were deeply interested in the Biblical history,
they were not so enthusiastic as the two ladies mentioned.

"Are we going to Mount Sinai?" replied the commander, repeating the
question of the owner's mother, "No!"

It was a decided "no" this time, and the jaws of the two Von Blonk
Parkites suddenly dropped. Everybody in the company knew that the
commander would do anything, even to swimming across the gulf where the
children of Israel had walked over, to oblige her, and they were very
much surprised at the emphatic negative.

"I shall not finally decide this interesting question without giving my
reasons," continued Captain Ringgold. "It would be an extremely
interesting excursion to me, as well as to the others. Though I have
been to Suez before, I have not made the trip, and I should be as glad
to go as any person present. Many travellers go there, especially
clergymen, to whom it is in a sense professional, aside from the
interest their studies would naturally create in the subject, and the
excursion finds a place in many excellent books of travel. I do not
consult my own personal desires so much as the situation and
circumstances in which we are placed.

"Although we call our voyage an All-Over-the-World affair, the title is
considerably exaggerated in the truest and most literal sense; for if we
devoted the rest of our natural lives to the work, we could not go
everywhere. It is impossible to visit every country on the earth even,
and we must use judgment and discretion in determining where we will go.
We are travelling by sea, making only such excursions inland as the
facilities of the country we visit will conveniently permit. Such trips
as we make of this kind must be regulated or controlled by conditions
over which we have no influence.

"Times and seasons form an important consideration. We are going to
India, and the season is advancing. The southern end of the Red Sea is
in latitude 12° north, where you are likely to see some hot weather; and
the longer we delay, the hotter it will be. We shall sail from here
Tuesday morning; and if we do not make a run up into the Persian Gulf,
we shall probably be at Bombay by the first of next month. That city is
in latitude 19°, or about that of the south side of Cuba, of which you
know something. We shall see plenty of extremely hot weather, but we
wish to avoid it as much as possible.

"There are several routes to Mount Sinai, three from Suez, and two from
ports south of it. It will take from two weeks by the shortest route to
four by the others. It is a very fatiguing journey if made with due
diligence, and it would require a full month for us to see the country
properly. My first objection is the time it would require.

"In the next place, the expense is from forty to fifty francs a day,
eight to ten dollars, for each person, over a hundred dollars a day. If
the result justified it, I should not object to the expense, and I don't
think Uncle Moses would. There are no hotels in this region, and you
would have to camp out, live in hovels, or at best in the monastery; and
the trip would involve a great deal of discomfort to persons not
accustomed to roughing it. The 'Big Four' might make a pleasant affair
of it, but most of the others would not.

"All the preparations for the excursion have to be made at Cairo, where
dragomans who contract to supply tents, camels, food, and everything
required are to be found, and I was approached by three of them at
Shepheard's Hotel."

"Then the trip seems to be impossible now, and it is useless to talk
about it," suggested Mr. Woolridge; and the captain thought he could
perceive an expression of relief on his face.

"It is not impossible," added the commander with a smile. "We can go to
Tur, 140 miles south of Suez, and there we shall find camels and a
contractor, though perhaps not for so large a company. I do not think
our party would enjoy the trip whichever way we might go. It is a rough
country, a group of mountains. The Monastery is 5,014 feet high, and it
must be cold weather up there in January. The Jebel Musa, which is
usually regarded as the Holy Mountain, is 7,363 feet high; but even
Mount Sinai itself is disputed ground, and the question 'Is Mount Serbal
the Sinai of Scripture?' is discussed by the critics. Serbal is 8,712
feet high, the loftiest, I believe, on the peninsula, and is nearer to
the gulf than the others.

"I believe the discomfort and exposure of the trip render it
impracticable at the present time and at the present season. The
guide-books indicate the months of March and April as the best for the
excursion; and it is too early to go now with comfort, not to say
enjoyment. Of course I do not know what Mr. Belgrave, under the advice
of his guardian and trustee, will do with the Guardian-Mother when our
present voyage shall be completed; but if he should retain the steamer,
I should recommend him to make a trip across the ocean at the right
time, and up the Mediterranean, by the Gulf of Iskanderun to
Alexandretta, which is near the head waters of the Euphrates River, a
proposed route to India by the Persian Gulf, of which I may have
something to say another day.

"From this city the steamer could take in the ports of the Holy Land, or
her passengers could journey through Syria by land, with tents and
dragoman. The ship could then be left at Port Said, the party could come
through the canal to Suez in the Maud, or by some other conveyance, and
then make a business of exploring the Peninsula of Sinai," said the
commander in conclusion.

"That arrangement would suit me much better," added Mrs. Belgrave. "I
have been groaning at the necessity of going home without seeing the
Holy Land. I shall keep this plan in my mind as one to be carried out in
a couple of years if my son does not object to it."

"The Guardian-Mother shall not go out of commission until this voyage is
completed," replied Louis promptly. "Captain Ringgold is engaged as
commander for life, and he will attend to the accomplishment of my
mother's wishes."

"I thank you, Mr. Belgrave, for the confidence thus reposed in me, and I
shall be most happy to command the steamer on such a voyage," replied
the captain. "We cannot calculate on events of the future with too much
assurance."

The day passed away quietly with reading and singing, and very early in
the morning the passengers heard an unusual sound of activity on the
part of the ship's company. The captain had given orders the night
before to have everything made ready for hoisting on deck the Maud. He
had announced his intention to the "Big Four" in his cabin, and given
his reasons for his decision. Scott and Felix regretted this change in
the programme of the voyage more than the other two.

"The Red Sea is sometimes a very stormy place," said the commander. "I
have feared more than anything else when you have been sailing in the
Maud that she might get separated from the ship in a fog, or in some
other manner, and that the little steamer might come to grief, however
well she might be handled; for she certainly is not large enough for an
independent voyage.

"In the very last paper I received from New York, I read of a new
steam-yacht to be built by a millionaire for the voyage around the world
which has lately become the fad of millionaires. One item struck my
attention; that she was to be armed with four cannon whose calibre was
not given, as well as with a supply of small arms. The wealthy voyager
was afraid of pirates, or some other freebooters on the Malabar and
Malay coasts, as well as among the islands of the Indian Ocean and those
of the Pacific.

"As you are aware, I took the same precautions myself; and I only regret
now that I did not take on board more guns and small arms. We have had
occasion to use our twelve-pounders on one occasion, and perhaps, if the
ship had reached the coast of Cyprus at the time I expected, I might
have found them useful. I do not anticipate any trouble from native
pirates wherever we may go; but I think the Maud is a temptation to
Arabs and other natives.

"In 1882 Edward Henry Palmer, an Englishman, while on a peaceful mission
with two officers of the British service, was murdered by the natives,
with his two companions, near Suez, but on the other side of the gulf.
If I were sure that the ship could always be near enough to defend the
little steamer if attacked, I should feel different about it. Then we
are liable to encounter fearful storms, cyclones, in the Indian Ocean,
and I think it is more prudent to have the little craft on our deck,
rather than in the water."

Neither Captain Scott nor Felix was disposed to argue the question, and
they said nothing. Early in the morning the work of preparation began
with the removal of everything heavy from the Maud that was not a
fixture. She was a large steam-launch to be hoisted on the deck of a
steamer no larger than the Guardian-Mother; but the task was
satisfactorily accomplished by lunch-time. The afternoon was used in
bracing the craft in her position, and putting everything around her in
ship-shape condition.

The space occupied by Conference Hall had been taken; but the captain
had set the carpenter at work to extend the promenade six feet aft, and
the work was completed before night. The carpet was laid, and the
arm-chairs removed to the new Conference Hall. The awning overhead was
to be lengthened out by the sailmakers among the crew.

Mr. Shafter had always insisted that his force was too small, and the
captain admitted the truth of his position. Felipe Garcias had stood on
the books of the ship as third engineer for several months; and John
Donald was made fourth engineer. The chief was entirely satisfied with
the appointments. Pitts returned to his place on the forecastle as a
seaman. The "Big Four" had staterooms in the cabin. After all, the
change was only the restoration of the old order of things before the
ship arrived at Gibraltar.

At daylight the next morning the Guardian-Mother hauled out of the
basin, and started on her voyage for the other extremity of the Red
Sea.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CONFERENCE ON THE PROMENADE

The promenade did not wholly change its name after it became Conference
Hall, and had been enlarged and improved. It was as popular a resort as
it had ever been when the ship was under way and there was anything to
be seen. The place was occupied when the ship hauled out of the basin in
the early morning of January 19; for the passengers had all asked to be
called at five o'clock.

It seemed a little strange to go to sea without the Maud astern, and
with the principal members of her ship's company seated with the others
on the promenade. The commander had engaged a pilot for the whole length
of the Red Sea; for it is full of rocks and reefs, making the navigation
difficult and dangerous, though it has been thoroughly surveyed, and the
chart is speckled with small islands and coral reefs.

"I could give you the Arabic names of some of the surroundings as we
proceed," said the captain, who had taken a position where he could
observe the movements of the vessel, and it enabled him to look into the
pilot-house through the after windows when he desired to do so.

"Please don't, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Belgrave. "It makes my
jaws ache even to hear them."

"But there are some things which have no other names, and they must
sometimes be used. That buoy on the starboard has no English name; but
it is of no consequence, and I will not try to speak it. On the opposite
shore is the Gebel Ataka, which you have noticed before. By this time
you have learned that gebel is a mountain, and _jebel_, as you will find
it on your map of the Peninsula of Sinai, means the same thing. _Ras_ is
a cape. Formerly I knew many more words than now; for it is very easy to
forget a foreign language."

"There is a lightship on the starboard," said Louis, who was seated
between his mother and Miss Blanche.

"That is the Zenobia, on Newport Rock," added the captain. "Now look to
the shore on the left, which is called Abu Darraj. Perhaps you had
better write it down and remember it; for the people in this vicinity
believe the Israelites crossed the Red Sea where the ship is at this
moment. The water was formerly very shallow here, and a passage for
vessels had to be dredged through it. Napoleon and some of his generals
were here, and tried to cross over on horseback; but the sea served him
as it did Pharaoh and his army; the wind changed, and the tide rolled in
so that he was compelled to retreat."

There was nothing more to be explained, and the commander went to the
pilot-house; but the air was delightfully pleasant, and the sun rising
over the mountains of the peninsula was a beautiful sight. The ladies
were in raptures, and some of the gentlemen shared the enthusiasm. The
boys left their seats, and walked about the upper deck. Then Miss
Blanche thought she had better walk for a time before breakfast, and
very soon the whole party were occupied in the same manner. The
commander had appointed a conference at nine o'clock, and several
interesting subjects were to be considered.

Captain Ringgold was not disposed to drive his ship at her best speed,
which was over sixteen knots an hour; but he had instructed Mr. Shafter,
the chief engineer, to give her about fourteen knots, for she was more
comfortable at this rate than when forced to do her utmost, to say
nothing of the saving of coal. At this rate she would arrive at Bombay
in ten days, including a stop of one day at Aden. In this time he
expected to accomplish a great deal in the school of the conference.

The weather was fortunately all that could be desired, though the Red
Sea sometimes behaves very badly; and at the time appointed the members
of the party were all in their places on the promenade. The little
table, with its vase of flowers brought from the gardens of the
Terreplein, was in position. Mr. Woolridge was one of the first to take
his arm-chair. He had at first been rather indifferent in regard to the
instruction element of the ship, but had become quite interested since
he had been called to the platform as a speaker.

The commander was the first to take the platform; and he appeared with a
rose in the lappel of his coat, which probably would not have been there
if Mrs. Belgrave had not placed it there. She was very fond of flowers,
and had arranged quite a collection of potted plants, as well as filled
all the vases on board with cut flowers from the village.

"The subject first in order seems to be the Red Sea; and we have not yet
spoken of it in detail, though we have had considerable to say about it.
I shall purposely omit some things which will be explained when we come
to them. I am glad to see that you have brought your diaries or
note-books with you, as I suggested, and you can write down the names of
notable sights and the figures I shall give. I wish to say that I have
always prepared myself for these occasions, and do not talk to you at
random.

"The Red Sea is an arm of the Indian Ocean, with the Gulf of Aden, about
800 miles long, as a connection between them. The Persian Gulf, with the
Gulf of Oman, forms a similar body of water, and they will probably
render the same service to England and India that the Red Sea does at
the present time. Arabia lies between them. The sea on which we are now
sailing is 1,200 miles long."

"Badaeker gives the length as 1,400 miles," said Louis.

"He gives it in English miles," replied the commander. "A degree of a
great circle is 69.07 English, or statute miles as we call them, or 60
geographical sea miles or knots. This distinction has been fully
explained to you before. For ordinary purposes the number of sea miles
is to the number of statute miles in the ratio of six to seven. In other
words, there will be six-sevenths as many knots as statute miles, and
conversely, seven-sixths as many statute as sea miles. Six-sevenths of
1,400 is 1,200; and thus we agree.

"The Red Sea varies in width from 100 to 200 miles, and in the broadest
part it is 205 sea miles. We are still in the Gulf of Suez, and shall be
till about five this afternoon. On the African side you will see
mountains all the way to the strait, with only sand between them and the
water. There is nothing that can be called a town between Suez and
Koser, over 300 statute miles. All around the sea are coral-reefs; and
we shall pass a lighthouse on one right in the middle of it. Not a
single river flows into the Red Sea, for there are no rains in Egypt;
and if there were on either side, the desert would absorb all the water.

"This sea has the reputation of being a hot region. The thermometer
ranges from 70° to 94°, and sometimes the mercury mounts to over 100°,
always in the daytime, and it may fall to the freezing point at night,
though rarely. As on the Nile, the rule is hot days and cool nights,
though you may find some of the latter uncomfortable farther south, for
the water has shown a temperature of 100°.

"The water is somewhat salter than the ocean, because no rivers empty
into it, and because of excessive evaporation. It has been said by some
scientists that, if the Red Sea were entirely enclosed, it would become
a solid body of salt in less than two thousand years. I suppose they
mean that all the fluid would evaporate, and the salt in it would remain
at the bottom. We will not worry about it.

"The average depth of this sea is 2,250 feet, and the greatest 7,200. I
have nothing more to say about it; but while I am up I will say a few
words about the new route to India of which I have spoken before. The
Gulf of Iskanderun, sometimes called Scanderoon, is the north-east
corner of the Mediterranean. Its eastern shore is within a hundred miles
of the headwaters of the Euphrates River, which is navigable for small
craft to Bir. Sixty years ago some preferred it to the Suez route. A
grant of money was made by Parliament, two iron steamers of small size
were put into the river; and though one of them was sunk, the other went
through to the Persian Gulf.

"It was shown that this route was about a thousand miles less in
distance than any other to Kurrachee, the nearest port in India. But
political influences were at work against it, first from Egypt, and then
from some of the Powers, in the belief that it would give England an
advantage in the affairs of Asia, and the scheme was dropped. Now we
will take a walk of half an hour about the ship; for school-children
need rest and recreation.

"But I wish to remind you again that you are now near the ancient world;
for Arabia is in sight all the time, and Assyria, Babylonia, Syria are
beyond it. The professor will have the floor after the intermission."

During the recess the party walked about the deck and observed the
mountains, which were still in sight on both sides. Four bells, or ten
o'clock, was the signal for them to come together again. Whatever might
be anticipated farther south, the air was soft and pleasant, and not
over warm, about 70° in the shade.

"My excellent friend, Mr. Woolridge, has just reminded me of the promise
made by the commander that certain ancient travellers over the world
should be taken up, as we have frequent occasion to quote them,"
Professor Giroud began. "There are only three of them of any especial
note, the first of whom is Herodotus, 'the Father of History,' as he is
often called, and was worthy of the title.

"He was born about 485 years before the time of Christ, at
Helicarnassus, a Greek colony of Asia. This was about the time the
Persians were invading Greece. When this city obtained its freedom,
there was a dispute about the method of government, in which he was
involved, and which caused him to leave his native place. For the
ancient time, over two thousand years ago, when they had no railroads
and steamboats, his travels are remarkable for their extent. He went all
over Asia Minor and Greece proper, as well as the islands of the Ægean
Sea. He visited Macedonia, Thrace, and the coasts of the Black Sea.

"What was more remarkable, he penetrated to the Persian Empire and
Babylon, and toured Egypt more thoroughly than most modern travellers.
Then he extended his wanderings to Sicily and lower Italy. He was alive
at the first of the Peloponnesian War; but what became of him, when or
where he died, is not known.

"He spent the greater part of his life in travel, though not for
pleasure, but in acquiring knowledge which he intended to make useful to
the world. He was the most eminent geographer of his time, and he may
father that science as appropriately as that of history. But he treated
many other branches of knowledge, like the races of men and their
peculiarities, mythology, archæology, and, in fact, everything that came
within the range of his observation. He was a man of a high order of
intellect, a philosopher in his criticism of governments. Modern
scholars are greatly indebted to him, and his works are still extant. He
did not have the highest style of composition; but he was an honest man,
and he wrote as he talked. You can understand the frequent references to
him in modern books of travel.

"Not as favorable a notice can be given of Strabo, who was an ancient
geographer. He was born about sixty-four years before Christ, at Amasia
in Pontus."

"Where was that?" asked the magnate, who was taking the deepest interest
in the exercise.

"It is a name given to a country in the north-eastern corner of Asia
Minor, on the Black Sea, the ancient name of which was Pontus Euxinus,
or Euxine Sea, from which it got its name. His mother was of Greek
descent, and nothing is known of his father. I suppose you all know what
strabismus means."

"I am sure I don't," replied Mrs. Blossom; and probably she was the only
one who could answer in the negative.

"In plain terms, it means cross-eyed; and doubtless Strabo obtained his
name from having this defect in his eyes. Whether any of his family were
called so before him is not known. He studied with various learned men
in Greece, Rome, and Alexandria. It does not appear that he had any
occupation, but devoted all his time to study and travel. He wrote
forty-seven books, and those on geography were very valuable; for he
wrote from his own observation, though sometimes he is very full, at
others very meagre. He is regarded as by no means the equal of
Herodotus.

"The third of whom I am to speak is Diodorus Siculus."

"You have put a tail on his name, Professor," added the magnate.

"That is as much a part of his name as the rest of it, as used by
scholars. It means that he was born in Sicily. Very little is known
about him beyond what he told himself. He lived in the time of Julius
Cæsar and Augustus, and for a long time in Rome. He travelled in Europe
and Asia for material. He wrote a history of the world from the creation
to the time of Julius Cæsar. Some of the volumes are lost, and some of
them are still read.

"Diodorus was deficient in the qualifications of a historian; and about
all that is valuable in his writings is the mass of facts he gives, from
which he was not competent to make the proper deductions. The material
he gathered is valuable; but the thirty years he spent in the
composition of his works have not purchased for him the literary
reputation of Herodotus, or even of Strabo."

"I am very much obliged to you for your lecture, and I hope others
besides myself have profited by it," said Mr. Woolridge.

The professor bowed, and took some manuscript from his pocket.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD

When the promenade had been transformed into Conference Hall, the
arrangement for the maps had not been forgotten, and the frame had been
set up against the after end of the pilot-house. It covered the two
windows; but they were not needed when the ship was at sea. When the
professor made his bow, Mr. Gaskette exposed to the view of the audience
a map which had been completed before the steamer arrived at Port Said;
and all the way through the canal he and his assistants had been busy
upon others.

"Perhaps I ought to apologize for this map, Captain Ringgold," said Mr.
Gaskette, when he had unrolled the huge sheet; "for the boundaries of
these ancient countries are so indefinite in the great atlas that I have
not been able to lay down all of them."

"You have done exceedingly well, Mr. Gaskette, and I think the professor
can ask for nothing better than you have given him," replied the
commander.

"Certainly not," added the learned gentleman. "I can give the boundaries
no more definitely than they are presented on this beautiful map. I am
extremely delighted to have the assistance which it will afford me. The
artist might have guessed at some of the division lines, as others have
done. He has given us Mesopotamia, Susiana, and the region between them,
and that is all I desire.

"Perhaps I shall disappoint you, Mr. Commander, by the meagreness of my
description of these ancient countries; for these subjects in detail
would be very tiresome to the company under present circumstances, and I
propose to bring out only a few salient points in regard to them," said
the professor.

"The only thing I feared, Professor, was that you would go into them too
diffusely, forgetting that your audience are not savants, or even
college students, such as you have been in the habit of addressing. I am
very glad to find that you have just the right idea in regard to the
situation," replied Captain Ringgold.

"It is fortunate that we agree," continued the instructor, as he took
the pointer and turned to the map. "This map lays before you the region
lying to the north-east of Arabia, on the port hand of the ship, as the
commander would say; and with your imagination you can look over these
mountains and sands and see it. You observe that Syria is on the west of
the northern part of it, with Armenia just where it is now, on the north
of it, though there was more of it then than now; for in ancient times
it reached to the Caspian Sea. An old lady in the country at whose house
I used to spend my vacation used to call things that could not be
changed as fixed as the laws of the 'Medes and Parsicans.' She meant
the Medes and Persians; and Media, now a part of Persia, was the eastern
boundary of the region mapped out On the south-east is Susiana, now a
large portion of Persia.

"This beautiful map tempts me to be more diffuse than I should have been
without it; but it gives you a bit of ancient geography which will do
you no harm. There are two great rivers which extend through this
territory, the Euphrates and the Tigris, though both of them unite and
flow into the Persian Gulf. Of the former of them the commander has
spoken to you this morning. Scholars have not been able to locate
Paradise, or the Garden of Eden, with anything like precision; but it is
generally supposed to have been between these two great streams. Some
think it was not a place at all, but only a location given to a moral
idea; others place it in the mountains of Armenia or Northern
Mesopotamia."

"The pesky Bible critics!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom; but Mrs. Belgrave
"hunched her" as the good lady expressed it.

"All this region has been in the possession of various masters, and even
the countries themselves are very much mixed. Assyria was the eastern
portion of the northern part," continued the professor, indicating the
location with his wand. "In the British Museum and elsewhere you have
seen bass-reliefs and figures brought from the ruins of Assyrian cities,
and in these the country is called Assur. In Genesis x. 11, we read:
'Out of that land [Shinar] went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh.'
This was said of Nimrod; Shinar was a name of Babylonia.

"The history becomes complicated, and is a record of the achievements of
the Assyrian kings, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and others. It
would not be profitable to go over them. The Babylonian monarchy was
before Assyria was founded. The government was a despotism with nothing
to soften it, and the religion was the worship of many gods. Its history
dates back from 913 to 659 years before the birth of Christ, though
there are tablets which carry it back to 2330 A.D. The empire began to
decay in the reign of Sardanapalus, when the governor of Babylon and the
king of Media conspired against it; and Nineveh was captured and
destroyed a little more than 600 years before Christ."

The commander announced another recess at this time, though the party
appeared to be very much interested in the story of these ancient
countries, closely connected with Bible history. Half an hour was spent
in walking the deck and gazing at the shores, which were still the same,
for the ship was yet in the Gulf of Suez. After this rest the professor
resumed his place on the rostrum.

"This is Babylonia, as it is now called to distinguish it from Babylon,
the city," said the instructor, as he pointed to the region along the
shores of the southern Euphrates, and to the city on both sides of it.
"In the Scripture it is called Shinar, Babel, and 'the Land of the
Chaldees.' It was and is a very rich and fertile country, extensively
irrigated in modern times. Susiana is now a part of Persia, and the rest
of the territory represented on the map is included in Turkey in Asia.

"The people were of the Semitic race; in other words, they were
descended from Shem, the son of Noah; but Babylonia in the past and
present is a land of many races and languages, and the readers of the
inscriptions have been bothered by the variety of tongues. The British
and the New York Museum have figures and tablets revealing the history
of Babylonia. But it takes an archæologist to translate their
discoveries. The relations of the monuments indicate that the antiquity
of Babylonia reaches back about as far as that of Egypt. A stone in the
British Museum brought from this locality has the name of Sargon I.,
king of Akkad, is reliably vouched for as coming down from the year 3800
B.C.

"The ancient tablets inform us that Narbonassar ascended his throne in
747 (all these dates are B.C.). He reigned fourteen years, which were
taken up in wars with Assyria, in which the latter got the best of it in
the end. Then, in 625, invasions from the east afforded the Babylonians
the opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Assyria, and Nabopolassar
became king. In 604 he was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, who was
accounted one of the greatest monarchs that ever ruled the empire.

"In the forty-three years of his reign he recovered the lost provinces
of the kingdom, and made his country the queen of the nations of his
time. He rebuilt the city of Babylon, and restored all the temples and
public edifices. It is said that not a single mound has been opened in
this territory in which were not found bricks, cylinders, or tablets on
which his name was inscribed. He captured Jerusalem, and a year later
destroyed it, sending most of its people to Chaldea. He died in 561, and
was succeeded by his son.

"This son was murdered; and there was confusion again till 556, when the
throne was usurped by Nabonidus, the son of a soothsayer, who became a
wise and active prince, and his reign ranks next in importance to that
of Nebuchadnezzar. His name is found in almost all the temples
unearthed. After he had ruled seventeen years, all Babylonia revolted
against him because he neglected his religious duties, as well as those
of the court, leaving all the business to be done by his son Belshazzar.

"At this point the historians get mixed again. Some say that Belshazzar
was the last king of Babylonia. In Daniel v. 30, we read: 'In that night
was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median
took the kingdom.' Xenophon informs us that Babylon was taken in the
night while the inhabitants were engaged in feasting and revelry, and
that the king was killed. To this extent sacred and profane history
agree. The country became a Persian province. Then it was conquered by
Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323. It was also a part of
the Roman Empire at two different times.

"In 650 the successors of Mohammed overthrew the Persian monarchy, and
the province was the seat of the caliphs till A.D. 1258. On the Tigris
in this region is the city of Bagdad, the capital of a province of the
same name. Here lived and reigned the Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, or
Haroun 'the Orthodox,' who is more famous in story than in history,
though he was a wise ruler, a poet, and a scholar, and built up his
domain. I have disposed of the two principal empires of this region,
pictured on the map; and the next in order is Persia."

"You haven't told us about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, said to be
one of the great wonders of the world," suggested Mrs. Belgrave.

"They are hardly historical; but I will give you what I recall in
relation to them. One writer says they were built by Queen Semiramis,
the wife of Ninus, an alleged founder of Nineveh. She was a beautiful
girl, brought up by Simmas, a shepherd, from whom her name is derived.
One of the king's generals fell in love with her and married her. Then
he himself was smitten by her beauty, and wanted her himself; the
husband was good-natured enough to commit suicide, and she became queen.
Ninus soon died in a very accommodating manner, and Semiramis reigned
alone for over forty years.

"Others regard the wonderful gardens as the work of Nebuchadnezzar.
Diodorus Siculus and Strabo have described them. They are said to have
covered about four acres, built on terraces, supported by arches of
brick or stone, and were seventy-five feet high. They were watered from
a reservoir at the top, to which water was forced from the Euphrates.
Fountains and banquet halls were placed on the various terraces, as well
as gardens of flowers. Trees, groves, and avenues gave a variety to the
scene, and the view of the vast city was magnificent."

The professor retired; and another recess followed at the word of the
commander, who thought his school was doing admirably, and he was
anxious not to overdo the matter.

"I am afraid it will take all day for me to dispose of the subjects
assigned to me," said the professor, as he took his place again.

"I hope it will," replied Mr. Woolridge. "Very much to my surprise, I
have become deeply interested in the subjects you present, Professor."

"It is better than the theatre," added Miss Blanche in a low tone to
Louis.

"I shall give you only a few fragments in regard to Persia, and leave
Syria to be considered when the Guardian-Mother makes her trip to
Palestine. Persia is called Iran by the natives, and it is the largest
and most powerful native kingdom of Western Asia. It includes the
provinces of Susiana, Persis, and Media on the map, and extends from the
Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, with Afghanistan and Beloochistan on
the east, and Asia Minor on the west.

"A considerable portion of the country is mountainous, and between the
Elburz range and the Caspian Sea is an extinct volcano 18,600 feet high.
About three-fourths of Persia is practically a desert for want of rain
or artificial irrigation. In California, Colorado, and other States, our
people have transformed just such regions into fertile districts. But in
spite of the fact that such a large portion of the country is a desert,
some parts are exceedingly fertile and beautiful. Some immense valleys,
even a hundred miles wide, are of this character, and the productions of
the country are varied and valuable. It has no navigable rivers, though
many of large size and volume, some of which are beginning to be used
for purposes of irrigation. There are many salt lakes.

"The climate is varied; as Cyrus said to Xenophon, 'The people perish
with cold at one extremity, and are suffocated with heat at the other.'
The population has been estimated from forty down to eight millions; and
the latter is probably about correct. Roads are utterly neglected, and
the people live in mean houses, generally of earth or mud, and the
wealthy are not much better housed than the poorer class. The trade is
of little importance. There are silk manufactures in nearly every
province. Cotton and woollen fabrics, carpets, shawls, and felt goods
are largely produced; and the trade is carried on between the chief
towns of Persia with the interior of Asia by caravans. They exchange
these goods for cloth, printed calico, tea, coffee, and fancy goods.
Teheran in the north is the capital and the most important place;
Ispahan is in the centre, Shiraz in the south, and Bushire is the
principal seaport on the gulf.

"The government is an absolute monarchy of the most pronounced kind,
though somewhat influenced by the priests, the dread of private
vengeance, and insurrection. Taxation is heavy, and very burdensome to
the subjects. Persia has a standing army of 200,000, but it is said to
exist largely on paper. Incidentally you have learned considerable about
the history of the country, and I shall not go over it. The present
shah, as he is called, is Nâsr ed-dîn, born in 1831. He ought to be a
progressive monarch, for he has visited England and France several
times."

The professor retired, and the conference adjourned till afternoon.

CHAPTER XXIX

VIEW OF MOUNT SINAI IN THE DISTANCE

When the professor concluded his lecture for the forenoon, the audience
scattered, some of them feeling the need of more exercise; but Captain
Ringgold went to the pilot-house. Like the cabin passengers, he
immediately gave his attention to the mountains of the peninsula; for
the African shore was little better than a blank, with nothing there
worthy of notice. The pilot was an intelligent man, and he proceeded to
question him in regard to the peaks in sight.

Just then there was nothing difficult in the navigation; and Twist, the
quartermaster, was at the wheel, steering the course which had been
given out, south south-west half west. The pilot knew the mountains as
though they had been old friends of his for a lifetime. It did not take
the commander long to learn his lesson; and he returned to the deck,
where the passengers were gazing at the lofty points, thirty to forty
miles distant, but still very distinctly seen in the clear air of the
day. As soon as the captain appeared they gathered around him. He had
ordered all the spy-glasses on board to be brought out, and those who
had opera or field glasses had been to their staterooms for them.

"Isn't it time to see something, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave,
to whom he had directed his steps.

"There is always something to be seen in a narrow gulf like this, though
we shall be out of sight of land to-morrow morning when you come on
deck. We are now abreast of a plateau 1,600 feet high, which extends for
about thirty miles along the coast. It is a part of the desert of Kaa,
which extends to the southern point of the peninsula, over which you
would have had to travel first by camel for nearly twenty miles, if we
had gone to Mount Sinai by the only route open to us.

"We have seen about deserts enough," added the lady.

"Then you are the better prepared for the immense contrast between
plains of sand and the rich lands of India, covered with the most
luxuriant foliage. Now we have it at its best!" exclaimed the commander.

"What do we have? I don't see anything."

"We have Mount Serbal, which some believe is the genuine Mount Sinai,"
continued the commander, as he pointed out the loftiest peak in sight,
and which was readily distinguished from all others.

All the passengers had by this time gathered near him; for all of them
were anticipating a sight at the lofty height which had given a name to
the peninsula, though its real name is Arabia Petræa, as we used to read
about it in "Stephens's Travels" sixty years ago.

"That mountain is the highest on the peninsula; and if it is not the
real Mount Sinai, where the law was delivered to Moses, some insist that
it ought to be, for they say it is loftier, grander, nobler, and more
worthy the great event than the one which is generally assigned as its
location," said the captain. "As you have been informed before, Serbal
is 8,712 feet high."

Mrs. Blossom did not appear to be satisfied. Evidently she desired to
"gush" over the Holy Mountain; but the doubt as to "which was which," as
she stated it, bothered her very seriously, and she was not at all
friendly to the "pesky Bible critics," who had raised the doubt as to
its identity.

"Jebel Musa!" shouted the commander a couple of hours later; and the
party gathered around him again.

"What on earth is that?" demanded the good lady.

"Keep cool, Sarah," said Mrs. Belgrave to her. "The captain will tell
you all about it in due time."

"Jebel, or gebel, means a mountain in Arabic; Musa is sometimes spelled
Moosa; and the whole name, I suppose, is 'Mountain of Moses,'" the
commander explained as soon as he had enabled every one to see the peak
that went by this name. "In other words, that is what nearly everybody
who knows anything about the matter believes to be the true Mount
Sinai."

"Mount Sinai!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom, who had apparently
determined not to be harassed by any more doubts, for what everybody
believed to be true must be so. "I should like to die on that
mountain," she declared, wringing her hands in a sort of rapture.

"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Sarah," interposed Mrs. Belgrave in a
whisper.

"How can a body look on Mount Sinai without being stirred up?" demanded
the good woman.

But whether it was Jebel Serbal or Jebel Musa, Mount Sinai was there;
and doubtless most of the company were as much impressed by the fact as
the excellent lady from Von Blonk Park, though they were less
demonstrative about it. Mrs. Belgrave was silent for a time; and then
she struck up one of Watts's familiar hymns, in which the others joined
her:--

    "Not to the terrors of the Lord,
      The tempest, fire, and smoke,
    Not to the thunder of that word
      Which God on Sinai spoke;
    But we are come to Zion's hill,
      The city of our God,
    Where milder words declare his will,
      And spread his love abroad."

As the gong sounded for lunch the ship was off Tur, but too far off to
see the place, if there was anything there to see; and the commander
mentioned it only as the port to which they would have sailed if they
had gone to Mount Sinai. The "Big Four" were more interested in the
Arabian craft they saw near the shore, for they always keep close to the
land. Their captains are familiar with all the intricate reefs where
large vessels never go. They are very cautious sailors, and on the least
sign of foul weather they run into one of the creeks which indent the
coast. They never sail at night; and if they have to cross the sea, they
wait for settled weather.

At the hour appointed for the afternoon conference the passengers were
all in their places; and however the report of his lectures may read,
the listeners were deeply interested, partly because they were inspired
by a desire for knowledge, and partly on account of their proximity to
the countries described. A map of the peninsula of Arabia had been
unrolled on the frame, with enough of its surroundings to enable the
audience to fix its location definitely in their minds. The professor
came up smiling and pleasant as he always was, and the boys saluted him
with a round of applause.

"My subject this time is Arabia, which the natives call Jezirat-al-Arab,
and the Turks and Persians Arabistan. It is a peninsula, the isthmus of
which reaches across from the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean
to the head of the Persian Gulf," the professor began, indicating on the
map the localities mentioned with the pointer. "Asia abounds in
peninsulas, and Arabia is the great south-western one. From north-west
to south-east it extends 1800 miles, and is about 600 wide. It has an
area of 1,230,000 square miles, which is a very indefinite statement to
the mind, though given in figures, and I will adopt the commander's
method of giving a better idea by comparison with some of the States of
your own country.

"It is nearly five times as large as the State of Texas, the most
extensive of the Union, and almost twenty-six times as large as the
State of New York. They do not take a census here; and estimates from
the best information that could be obtained make the population five
millions, which is less than that of the State of New York. Mr. Gaskette
has colored a strip of it along the Red Sea, about a hundred miles wide,
in green, as he has Palestine and the other parts of Turkey in Asia
shown before you. A large portion of Arabia consists of deserts, the
principal of which is the Syrian in the north.

"Ptolemy, not the king but the geographer, divided Arabia into three
sections,--Arabia Petræa, after the city of Petra; Arabia Deserta, the
interior; and Arabia Felix (Arabie Heureuse in French), which does not
mean 'the happy land,' as generally translated. Milton says, 'Sabean
odors from the spicy shores of Araby the blest.' The words meant the
land lying to the right, or south of Mecca, the Oriental principal point
of the compass being the east and not the north.

"The proper divisions at the present time are the Sinai peninsula,
Hedjaz, which is the northern part of the green strip; Yemen, the south
part (formerly Arabia Felix); Hadramaut, which borders the Arabian Gulf,
the ante-sea of the Red; and Oman, a mountainous region at the entrance
of the Persian Gulf, an independent country, under the government of the
sultan or imam of Muscat, as the territory is also called.

"We do not know much about the interior of Arabia, one-third of which is
a desert, part of a zone reaching over all of Africa and Asia. El-Hasa,
along the Persian Gulf in the east, for such a country, is level and
fertile, and is really a Turkish province, like those on the west coast.
A short rainy season occurs on the west coast, which only fills up the
low places; and there is hardly a river, if there is anything entitled
to the name, which is strong enough to go alone to the sea from any
distance inland. Fine fruits are raised, especially in Yemen, as well as
coffee, grain, tobacco, cotton, spices, aloes, frankincense, and myrrh.

"Sheep, goats, oxen, camels, and horses are raised for domestic use.
Gazelles and ostriches live in some of the oases, where also the lion,
panther, hyena, and jackal seek their prey. The magnificent Arabian
horse has been raised here for a thousand years. The camel is one of the
most useful animals of this country; and some suppose he is an original
native, for his likeness is not found among Egyptian drawings and
sculptures. There are plenty of fish and turtle along the coast.

"The original Arab is found here, and there is something about him to
challenge our admiration. He is muscular, though of medium height, and
is sharp and quick-witted by nature. He has some leading virtues, such
as hospitality and good faith; he is courageous and temperate, perhaps
because wine and spirits are forbidden in the Koran. But he is a sort of
a natural robber, and seeks a terrible revenge for serious injuries. His
wife, and there are often several of her, does the work, keeps house,
and educates the children. Some Arabs are settled in towns or oases, and
others lead a wandering life.

"'Blessed is the country that has no history,' for it is usually the
record of wars. Arabia has nothing that can properly be called history;
but it has been concerned in the wars of Turkey and Egypt. What there is
relates to the birth and life of Mohammed, and his wars to promote the
increase of his followers; and I shall tell you the story of the Prophet
at another time."

The professor retired after the usual applause. Some walked the deck,
watching whatever was to be seen, especially the Arabian dhows, and
occasionally a large steamer passed; and some went to sleep in their
staterooms. The course of the Guardian-Mother had been varied as much as
the soundings would permit as she approached the Jubal Strait, which is
the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, in order to give the passengers a view
of some interesting scenery.

"There is the Jebel Zeyt," said the commander, as he pointed out a group
of hills, called mountains by courtesy, of a reddish hue. "Those hills
are 1,530 feet high, and this locality is famous in story. The material
of the elevations is hæmatite, which Dr. Hawkes can explain better than
I can."

"It is a native sesquioxide of a reddish color, with a blood-like
streak," added the surgeon, laughing.

"Do you understand it, Mrs. Blossom?" asked the captain, turning to that
worthy lady.

"I am sure I don't," protested she, blushing.

"The sesquipedality of that word is trying to all of us, I fancy, and I
am in the same box as the lady; for I am as sure as she is that I don't
know the meaning of the word," added the professor.

"Of course you don't, for it is a technical term," replied the doctor.
"It means an oxide in which two atoms of a metal combine with three
atoms of oxygen. Please to remember it, Mrs. Blossom."

"I don't even know what an ox-hide is," returned the lady promptly; for
the professor had vindicated her by not understanding a definition
himself.

"We will settle that another time, if you please," interposed the
commander. "These rocks are said to be so powerfully magnetic as to
affect the compasses of ships passing them. The water is sometimes
marked about here with patches of oil. Large sums were expended in this
vicinity in boring for petroleum; but none of any account was found.
Probably the red mountain has given its name to the sea, though that is
not known."

"Possibly Sinbad the Sailor was in this strait when the loadstone drew
out the bolts in his ship, though he does not give the latitude and
longitude of the place in the story of his adventure," suggested Louis.
In the evening the passengers looked at the lights, and retired at a
seasonable hour.

CHAPTER XXX

SOME ACCOUNT OF MOHAMMED THE PROPHET

The passengers of the Guardian-Mother fell back into their former sea
habits when there was nothing particular to be seen, and only the young
men appeared on deck before seven o'clock. Mrs. Belgrave and Louis were
the first to meet the commander on the second morning. He had been to
the pilot-house several times during the night; but he was an early
riser, and had already looked over the log slate, and visited every part
of the ship.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Belgrave; good-morning, Louis; I hope you have both
slept well," said the captain, saluting them.

"I have slept like a rock all night long," replied the lady.

"I have fallen into sailors' ways, so that I go to sleep whenever I lie
down," added Louis. "I could sleep my four hours on board of the Maud,
and wake at the right time without being called. But where are we now,
sir?"

"You see the lighthouse ahead; that is in latitude 25°. We are now
nearly as far south as the first cataract on the Nile, as far south as
we went in Africa."

"I can understand that better than simple figures," said Mrs. Belgrave.

"But we went a little farther south than that off Cuba," suggested
Louis.

"We shall cross the Tropic of Cancer while we are at luncheon," added
the commander. "You learned at school that this boundary was at
twenty-three and a half degrees north of the equator, and it is
generally so stated, though it is not quite accurate."

"I wish you would explain this at the next conference, Captain Ringgold,
for what you say is a surprise to me," said Louis.

"I will do it in a general way, though I am not an astronomer in the
scientific sense of the word," answered the captain. "We are approaching
the Dædalus lightship. I suppose you remember the name."

"I know that Dædalus was a very ingenious artist of Athens, who planned
the Cretan labyrinth, invented carpentry and some of the tools used in
the trade; but I don't know why his name was given to this lighthouse."

"I cannot inform you why it is so called, if there was any reason for
doing so; very likely it was given to it for no reason at all, as some
of the ships in the British navy are supplied with classical names for
the mere sound of the words, as Agamemnon, Achilles, though with some
reference to the trade of the originals in war."

"Why is it placed here all alone in the middle of this sea?" asked
Louis, who had looked about it for any signs of rocks.

"It is built on a dangerous reef which is never above water, though some
small round black rocks are seen at low tide awash. They look like the
kettles in which cooks get up a boiled dinner; and for this reason the
Arabs call the reef Abu Kizan, which means the 'father of pots.' As you
perceive, the ship is now out of sight of land; for the Red Sea is a
hundred and twenty miles wide at this point. But there is the gong for
breakfast, and we must attend to that."

The usual hour for the conference was nine o'clock when the ship was at
sea. So far the weather was remarkably pleasant; the north-west wind was
very gentle, and the ship hardly pitched at all. At the regular hour the
passengers had assembled on the promenade. The map of Arabia had been