But Very Early Next Morning We Bore Into The Harbour, Busy With A
Great Quantity Of Craft.
We passed huge black hulks of mouldering
men-of-war, from the sterns of which trailed the dirty red
Flag,
with the star and crescent; boats, manned with red-capped seamen,
and captains and steersmen in beards and tarbooshes, passed
continually among these old hulks, the rowers bending to their
oars, so that at each stroke they disappeared bodily in the boat.
Besides these, there was a large fleet of country ships, and stars
and stripes, and tricolours, and Union Jacks; and many active
steamers, of the French and English companies, shooting in and out
of the harbour, or moored in the briny waters. The ship of our
company, the "Oriental," lay there - a palace upon the brine, and
some of the Pasha's steam-vessels likewise, looking very like
Christian boats; but it was queer to look at some unintelligible
Turkish flourish painted on the stern, and the long-tailed Arabian
hieroglyphics gilt on the paddle-boxes. Our dear friend and
comrade of Beyrout (if we may be permitted to call her so), H.M.S.
"Trump," was in the harbour; and the captain of that gallant ship,
coming to greet us, drove some of us on shore in his gig.
I had been preparing myself overnight, by the help of a cigar and a
moonlight contemplation on deck, for sensations on landing in
Egypt. I was ready to yield myself up with solemnity to the mystic
grandeur of the scene of initiation.
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