They both dislike books which are “full of lies” (including many excellent modern stories). “Monte Cristo” has the seal of romantic truth. I met a man in a steamer later on in my journey who said that “Monte Cristo” was the best book in print. I agree. In the Red Sea it was almost too hot to read, and I murmured to myself those lines from H. Belloc’s epic, “The Modern Traveller”:-- “O Africa, mysterious land, Surrounded by a lot of sand-- Far land of Ophir, mined of old By lordly Solomon for gold, Who sailing southward to Perim, Took all the gold away with him, And left a lot of holes: Vacuities which bring despair To those confiding souls, Who find that they have bought a share In desolate horizons where The Desert, terrible and bare, Interminably rolls.” Perim we passed in the night, and then there suddenly came a moment when it got cooler. We had turned a corner and the breeze began to blow. A hot breeze, but a breeze. And it’s something even to get a hot breeze after four days and four nights in a Turkish bath. _The Gulf of Aden: July_ Everybody up to now has been vaguely discussing what kind of monsoon it would be. The most dismal prophecies were made. We were told it would be very rough, very hot, and very wet. As it turns out, it is not rough, not wet, but still hot: steamy and damp, that is to say. I now feel as if I had been all my life on board. The passengers, the officers, and crew seem to be the only people in my universe; the rest are shadows and dreams. There are not many passengers on board. People fight shy of the Red Sea and the monsoon in July. I think they are wrong. There are just enough people for company and not too many for comfort. There is a pleasant variety of passengers; a few Australians, two Germans, a Frenchman and his wife, an Irishman,--once a mining expert and now a professional painter who paints bold and capable landscapes in oil, full of colour and light,--a Scotch family, a High Commissioner (whatever that may be), an American lady singer, a missionary, and two young North-Country Englishmen. If one travels for over a month on a liner, one’s fellow passengers sometimes may become something more than what Bourget calls _profils perdus_: meaning the chance acquaintanceships of the _table d’hôte_ and the railway train. In a steamer one can, if one chooses, get to know people really well. Every evening a small crowd play whisky poker for cocktails; after dinner there is a good deal of bridge; sometimes some music. But from ship’s music, as a rule, one can “withdraw one’s attention” without difficulty.