The voyage to Port Said has been so often
described that I need not dwell upon it again. We had fair weather for
the first five days, and then there was a decided storm, which, however,
did not last long. One gets so knocked about in a steamer that baths are
impossible; one can only make a hasty toilet at the most, being obliged
to hold on to something, or be knocked the while from one end of the
cabin to the other; one dines, so to speak, on the balance, with the food
ever sliding into one's lap. Our boat danced about throughout the voyage
in a most extraordinary manner, which made me think that she had but
little cargo. I spent most of the time on deck, "between blue sea and
azure air," and I did a good deal of reading. I read Moore's _Veiled
Prophet of Khorassan_ and other books, including _Lalla Rookh_ and _The
Light of the Harim_; also Smollet's _Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, which_
I found coarse, but interesting. Some one told me that a course of
Smollett was more or less necessary to form one for novel-writing, so
I took that and _The Adventures of Roderick Random_ on board to study,
in case I should ever write a novel. I felt rather displeased when
Smollett's Lady of Quality married her second husband, and quite
_bouleversee_ long before I arrived at her fifteenth lover.
Port Said shows itself upon the southern horizon in two dark lines, like
long piles or logs of wood lying upon the sea, one large and one small.
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