Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
is a wireless installation on board and we get news every
day from other ships. In the next boat to pass us Lord
Kitchener is a passenger.
Of course on a boat like this it is only to be expected that
most of the people will be exceptionally interesting. There is
one family going to Nairobi, near Mombassa. The father is
going big game hunting and the mother, three children with
governess and servants are going to stay for a year in a
bungalo in the hills at Nairobi. The eldest child is a girl of 13
called Dorothy - the nicest little girl imaginable. She is quite
the favourite of the whole ship and I have made great friends
with her. She is very like Edie except she is younger and has
darker hair. There is a German young lady who is a profes-
sional violinist. We generally play together every morning. The
rest of the people are explorers, missionaries, governors and
consuls with their wives and children in some cases. We six
are the only passengers to Mozambique. There are also two
honeymoon couples who are going all round Africa as their
introduction to married life.
Tips and suchlike here on board come to a quite consider-
able amount. I have had to borrow five pounds to meet my
expenses.
Slowly the ship travelled across the Mediterranean, through
the Suez Canal and down the Red Sea with the heat, even in
March, becoming more and more intense:
All through the Red Sea the sun shone down furiously and
at night one still felt cooked, for the air was hot and puffed
like the fumes from an oven. One's intellect seems melted
away and energy even to read a novel is not forthcoming. I
spend a good deal of time on the grand piano . . . the heat
paralyses all ones powers. It is quite impossible to think
clearly. Everything is hazy and drowsy and even the atmos-
phere quivers with the strain. But the twilight abundantly
makes up for this. Then all ones faculties become strangely
intensified. The sun sets leaving behind sky and clouds of
