But the anchor is being drawn up and you feel like old residents on the “Nile,” and hardly know whether you are English or Americans as you look about at the new passengers, French, Portuguese, Brazilians and Argentinos; for the English tongue and simple brusque manners fall into slight minority. French clothes, which these wealthy new-comers love, are well displayed by their ladies, and you will soon be shrugging your shoulders and gesticulating dramatically unless you are very unsympathetic. Your next meals amuse you; for the bill-of-fare which so far has had English names and dishes, now caters to at least three sets of people. The English get their bacon, their “grilled bones,” and their cold meat pies, the Americans have hash (with a foreign element of grease and onions which the true Yankee would not own), the Portuguese have baccalhao and feijao (codfish and black beans), and plenty of mutton stewed with carrots. What else? Good soups, meats, vegetables, salads and desserts, and one dish daily required by the original charter of the Royal Mail Steamship Co.--curry and rice! These people and you are to be two weeks together now, in summer seas, a most _al fresco_ life. Each passenger has brought a deck chair to his own taste, varying from the simplest camp variety to the East Indian adjustable luxury of rattan with bottle-sockets in the arms and places to keep one’s books, field-glasses and games. TWO WEEKS IN TROPICAL SEAS. What will you do with yourself during the two six-day stretches from Lisbon to St. Vincent of the Cape Verde Islands and from St. Vincent to Pernambuco? You find yourself an old resident of the ship now, and mean to gain some sense of the real life of the people about you. The passengers are clannish at table and on deck. The English and Americans fall together in groups according to their taste or experience. The Portuguese, Brazilian and Argentine elements do the same. If you speak French you can converse with any of the three latter, for they are not confined to their mother tongues. “You Americans speak so few languages,” said one, once, to me with polite derogation.