- out putting coverings on our feet. Everywhere we
heard exploding fire-crackers; today is some sort of Mohammedan festival. . . . We received a lot of mail from home; the first in more than four months. After getting our mail, we lost interest in Port Said, and went back to the ship to read our letters. We found these so interesting that at 10:30, when the "Burgermeister" left for Naples, we barely glanced at the famous statue to Ferdinand de Lesseps which adorns the entrance to the canal.
Monday, April 28.—We are approaching the
Blessed Country of Bad Weather again. This morning
the sky is as threatening as it is on the morning
when you give a picnic, and when you wish it would
do one thing or the other. No country can amount to
much without bad weather: the trouble with Africa
and Arizona is too much fine weather. . . . The
Meriterranean, which we all dreaded, was as smooth
last night as a millpond, and shows no disposition today
to change its pacific character. . . . The first
thing you think of, on boarding a ship, is that funny
people travel. We meet a few nice, normal, sane people,
but most of them are freaks. On every ship we
meet the foolish son of a rich man, who is allowed to
travel to keep him away from home. The woman
traveler is nearly always peculiar; she is usually an
old widow with money, and as ugly as she is cranky.
There is a professional traveler always met with who
has no sense, and very little politeness, but he has been
