It was determined very soon after our arrival, in spite of Adams's covert opposition, that those who wished to leave should be taken on board our ship and transported to Alexandria, whence they could be sent by the consul to Liverpool as "distressed American citizens," and thence to America. Poor people! they had little to bring on board but the clothes in which they stood--well worn and mended, but generally clean and decent. Some few had modest bundles, and the younger women had even retained a little personal finery. Indeed, the women and girls all showed in their deportment much of the self-respect and quaint good manners due to their New England birth and training. These were all provided with private quarters for the short passage in the cabin and wardroom. The men were quartered upon the different messes among the crew, and they seemed to have suffered more degradation in their fallen fortunes than the women. Among the males was to be seen an occasional _tarboush_ or a pair of baggy trousers and sash; and it was curious to observe how the wearers of these garments had acquired a loaferish, _farniente_ air worthy of a native. Our officers and men did what they could toward assisting these poor people with spare clothing and a little cash. They seemed, however, to move about in a kind of daze, receiving the contributions properly enough, but in a quiet, undemonstrative kind of way; so different from the usual _backsheesh_ transactions to which we were accustomed in this part of the world that the contrast of itself would have proclaimed them a foreign race. In one or two cases the women, as soon as they found out what was going on, made a private request that any cash intended for them might be put into their own hands, "their men bein' kind of shiftless-like, you see." A quiet run of thirty hours brought us to the busy port of Alexandria, where the crowded harbor and the rush and bustle of the Overland traffic and travel caused a turmoil to which we had been for months unaccustomed. It must have been fairly bewildering to our passengers, fresh from their humdrum existence. The arrangements on their behalf were made in a few hours, and our poor fellow-countrymen were soon off for England in the steerage of a huge cotton-loaded freight-steamer, having a new experience in the companionship of Bengalese, Maltese, Arabs, English navvies and riff-raff of all tongues and complexions. In fact, the Overland route, at that time especially, afforded about the most curious aggregation of nationalities and costumes that the world has ever seen since the Crusades.