Well; I went with Robinson to Suez. The journey, like everything else in
Egypt, was sandy, hot, and unpleasant. The railway carriages were pretty
fair, and we had room enough; but even in them the dust was a great
nuisance. We travelled about ten miles an hour, and stopped about an
hour at every ten miles. This was tedious, but we had cigars with us and
a trifle of brandy and water; and in this manner the railway journey
wore itself away. In the middle of the night, however, we were moved
from the railway carriages into omnibuses, as they were called, and then
I was not comfortable. These omnibuses were wooden boxes, placed each
upon a pair of wheels, and supposed to be capable of carrying six
passengers. I was thrust into one with Robinson, his wife and five
children, and immediately began to repent of my good-nature in
accompanying them. To each vehicle were attached four horses or mules,
and I must acknowledge that as on the railway they went as slow as
possible, so now in these conveyances, dragged through the sand, they
went as fast as the beasts could be made to gallop. I remember the Fox
Tally-ho coach on the Birmingham road when Boyce drove it, but as
regards pace the Fox Tally-ho was nothing to these machines in Egypt. On
the first going off I was jolted right on to Mrs. R. and her infant; and
for a long time that lady thought that the child had been squeezed out
of its proper shape; but at last we arrived at Suez, and the baby seemed
to me to be all right when it was handed down into the boat at Suez.
The Robinsons were allowed time to breakfast at that cavernous
hotel--which looked to me like a scheme to save the expense of the
passengers’ meal on board the ship--and then they were off. I shook
hands with him heartily as I parted with him at the quay, and wished him
well through all his troubles. A man who takes a wife and five young
children out into a colony, and that with his pockets but indifferently
lined, certainly has his trouble before him. So he has at home, no
doubt; but, judging for myself, I should always prefer sticking to the
old ship as long as there is a bag of biscuits in the locker. Poor
Robinson! I have never heard a word of him or his since that day, and
sincerely trust that the baby was none the worse for the little accident
in the box.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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