[Some paragraph breaks added for ease of reading.]Bibby Line
Estd. 1821S. S. Lancashire
Red Sea - Sat., Nov. 2, 1929
Dear Friends, one and all:-
The Red Sea, a bright green-y blue, looks big and bright this morning, also some what choppy, which means a little more breeze than we shd. otherwise have. Today is hot & sticky. The canvas covers are over the decks and along the sides to keep out the sun. The electric fans work all the time.
Yesterday we had the shore on both sides, with high buffish cliffs on both shores. This morning there are no coast lines, but we must soon pick them up for we are due tomorrow early at Port Sudan. Many people disembark at P.S. so that we shall have much more space after that point.
Well - to go back, we reached Port Said early and as soon as we swallowed our breakfast, Miss Clark, Miss Butcher & I started for Simon Arzt, who, by the way, in under Selfridge in London. I bought a pith helmet for 9 sh. and Miss Clark got a very much better looking felt one. The streets on the way to S. A. were lined with shops containing things Egyptian and other wise and the shop keepers came out on the side walk to urge us to walk in and purchase. But I shook them off more easily than I expected. In Arzt's I was interested by the display of amber and one of our table companions, Dr. Murdock, bought a black amber necklace for his wife, that interested me, little squares of amber, with silver beads in between; it looks like jet, with a little less lustre. I got much entertainment from the hawkers who surrounded the boat & offered everything under heaven for sale, notably, rugs, shawls, tapestries, kimonos, fruit. And around among the boats men were diving for pennies. Remember Naples?
About noon we began to move, then my thrills began. The canal is narrow, with embankments on both sides. For a long way we saw much water on both sides, the Bitter Lakes, then the desert began, sand, sand, as far as the eye could see, level sand with scrub-y growth now & then. A railroad runs along the right bank and an irrigation trench, from Cairo, makes a little greenness possible. Palms and a tall grass like pampas grass. Kantara, an important military post during the war, was the largest settlement, a little bunch of cement houses with pink roofs. There we saw two camel camps, one quite near the canal. They looked like their pictures, but none of the latter give a notion of the odors that came across to us!
We saw the ferry that carries the trains across for Jerusalem. Calais, London was to be read on the sign over the starting point. We watched the cliffs that bordered the Sinai Peninsula. Mt. Sinai was some where in the rear. They say that it can't be seen. Neither can Mecca, alas! But the Arabian Penin. appeals to my imagination!! We are due early tomorrow in Port Sudan, where we lose a large number of people who scatter into the interior. The man who sits at table, on my left, goes off there. He talks of temperatures as high as 120° and of a fall of 50° as soon as the sun sets.
A letter from Edith Coon at Port Said gives me some further information as to the program at Colombo and tells me about Miss Stokeys visit to Kandy during the Michaelmas recess. You have probably heard about it. I hope that some of my ship-companions have plans that include Kandy but I have not yet heard of any. Edith and Miss Stokey made some real friends on their trip which I am afraid I have not done. But I have met a number of very pleasant pepole. Mr. Bamford, who is connected with the observatory in Colombo, has been friendly. He was telling me yesterday of his struggles over some proof that he is correcting, of the difficulties with local printers. And then told this late which I think, applied to one of the Eng. physicists. He was publishing a monograph on ions, and at one point passed from a description of simple to complex ions. The latter in the proof appeared as complexions!
Never have I seen so much smoking and drinking as on this boat. For a wonder Miss Clark, who is very modern in every other respect, does not smoke. The first night out, as we lay in our berths, the smoke came in strongly from the next stateroom. Each assured the other of causing it. I shall post my next letter from Colombo. I don't know how promptly this will reach you. The steward will post them at Port Sudan.
Much love to you from S. E. Smith
Ice cream instead of broth at eleven o'clock these days!