We remained at Alexandria just long enough to like it and to contract a few little habits--movies, bars, etc. Fourgues and I went to Cairo together and to the Pyramids. You have no idea how he can talk about all that. I don’t know where he was ever able to learn so much, and no hot air, you know, for I bought a guidebook afterwards to see if it was all true--the Pharaohs, the Turks, Bonaparte, and all that--and he had told it all just like the book. That reminds me, I want to thank you for the books you sent me. You are my father and my mother. I received them here the day before yesterday and I have begun with the maritime history of France. It is jolly interesting. I am not ashamed to confess to you that I don’t know much about it. But after what I have now read, it seems to me to be always the same story--frigates or battleships, sails or steam, you could say it was beginning all over again. Anyway, by degrees I will tell you what I think about it. At Alexandria our crew spent all their savings in four days and painted the streets and pubs red. The police brought several back, but Fourgues wouldn’t jump on them. “Leave them alone, my boy. Sailors aren’t archangels. Let the cops ship aboard the _Pamir_ for three months and see if they drink soda water after even that little while. When our beggars haven’t a cent left, they’ll be quiet enough and we’ll haul ’em up taut.” That’s the way with Fourgues. At sea he makes them leap with a rope’s end if things don’t move fast enough. But when there is nothing doing he let’s them go hell in their glory. I believe it’s the best way, for all the reservists have fallen into his ways, and there isn’t one who wants to leave the _Pamir_, although work there is devilish hard. After eight days in Alexandria we were ordered to Port Said. It was because of a cargo-boat from Bombay, filled with Indian soldiers for the front. Its condensers had gone to blazes and as the men must go and as the boat was in for a fortnight of repairs, they took the old _Pamir_, being free, to push along the six hundred men. As far as comfort goes, it was pretty poor. When it comes to freight, the _Pamir_ isn’t afraid of three thousand tons and even a little more crammed into the corners. But passengers! There is the deck and the hold, and you must make the best of that! Fourgues put two senior officers in each of the cabins of Blangy and Muriac and I don’t see how the four managed to exist. You know the cabins of the _Pamir_--they make splendid pigeon-holes! The other officers, the “subs” as the Bulls call them, we housed along with the non-commissioned officers, in the superstructure which served for the Boches last year. As for the rest, they were free to stuff themselves in anywhere, hold or deck, according to preference.