This set some of the more enterprising Tommies to establishing a “range card,” and, after questioning good-natured ship’s officers, they arrived at the information that our journey from Gib. to Mombasa was one of roughly some 6,000 miles. This “range card” was: Miles Gibraltar to Malta 1,200 Malta to Port Said 1,125 Port Said to Aden 1,675 Aden to Mombasa 1,950 Total 5,950 It was pleasant, now, forging ahead day after day, through sunny seas, neither storm-disturbed nor storm-delayed. Fair weather and placid sea, and the mellow wind of a southern spring—indeed we had found the Mediterranean in gracious mood. And under a clear sky is there another sea like that of the soft cobalt blue of the Mediterranean? It is not the commonplace sea, for it has lost all that is grey or blackish, and lives completely and wholly blue—blue as the overhead April sky; even more blue, more alluringly attractive. [Sidenote: MALTA] On the morning of the eighth day the ship worked slowly into the snug but narrow harbour at Malta, while all along deck deeply interested troops conversed on the unfolding view of this quaint and foreign port, dressed for the business of war and bristling with grim fortifications. British and French warships lay in harbour, and merchant vessels of all kinds—suggestive of the great activities of war in this quarter of the world, for here routes touched to the war zones of Egypt, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, India, and Africa. Here, as at Gibraltar, the boat hawking tobacco vendors arrived alongside from shore in their small craft, plying clamorous trade with the good-natured troops, until the arrival of the coal barges put them to flight. The ship coaled all day and late into night; a process conducted by swarms of gibbering ill-thriven Maltese natives, meagrely garbed in ragged loin-cloths, who filed, endlessly, up plank gangways from the barges to the coal bunkers in the ship’s side, each with his loaded wicker basket hoisted shoulder high. Coaling is a filthy business. Before evening, despite awnings and closed port-holes, the fine coal-dust had sought its way into every conceivable corner of the ship, to be roundly abused and accused by a thousand discomforted Tommies. None were sorry to get it over, and all rejoiced when, the following morning, the ship hove anchor and took again to the clean-winded open sea. Before departing, at early dawn, it was a strange sight to see row-boats from shore dredging the shallow harbour, with small bag nets, for the oddments of coal which had fallen overboard during the process of coaling—patient labour for a mere pittance of reward that forcibly suggested the value of fuel to the low-caste natives of the island.