k of
their shops. Our time ashore was too short for us to see what Colombo
really was like, but it was delightful to be able to stretch our legs
ashore again, and the novelty and charm of the streets and the
luxuriant tropical vegetation made us feel that we would be willing to
remain a lifetime amid scenes of such fascination and color.

After Colombo the days were more wearisome than before. The weather
was scorching and only a few of us could get on deck at a time for a
breath of fresh air. Long before nightfall the decks would be covered
with men lying on their blankets, for permission was given to as many
as there was room for to sleep on the boat and saloon decks, and as
there was only room for a twentieth of the complement, one had to grab
one's position early. Some preferred a comfortable night's rest to
their tea, and so would occupy their man's length of deck space while
the others were eating.

Going through the Red Sea was a feast of beauty, for the evening colors
of the sand-hills were gorgeous, and inconceivable to any but an
eye-witness. We were now on biblical ground, and great were the
religious arguments that waged. One boy wrote home that one of the
ship's anchors had brought up a wheel from the chariot of Pharaoh, and
his mother had replied that she was glad he was visiting such historic
country, but when he later on told her that "Big Lizzie" was firing
shells twenty-seven miles at the Dardanelles, she wrote him that she
was afraid life in the army was making him exaggerate things and that
he should keep strictly to the truth!

There was fighting going on at Aden when we passed--some Bedouins were
attacking the town from the desert side, but evidently it was not
serious, for, to our disappointment, we were not asked to join in. We
were merely examined by a British war-ship and told to pass on.

At Suez we disembarked and we were none of us sorry to say good-bye to
the old ship, and there were no fond farewells taken of the crew, for
they were as unpatriotic a set of scoundrels as ever sailed under the
British flag. They robbed us right and left. They stole our ration
jam, selling it to us in the form of a drink. A penny a glass would
buy "pineapple cordial," which was merely a tin of pineapple jam mixed
up in a ship's bucket of iced water. "Orangeade" was marmalade jam and
water. Strange to say, there were always enough "boobs" among us
soldiers to fall for it. On board ship we were