'She has one screw - only one screw!
Hear her thump! And have you seen their old barn of a saloon? And
the officers' library? It's open for two half-hours a day week-days and
one on Sundays. You pay a dollar and a quarter deposit on each book. We
wouldn't have missed this trip for anything. It's like sailing with
Columbus.'
They wandered about - voluble, amazed, and happy, for they were getting
off at Port Said.
I explored, too. From the rough-ironed table-linen, the thick
tooth-glasses for the drinks, the slummocky set-out of victuals at
meals, to the unaccommodating regulations in the curtainless cabin,
where they had not yet arrived at bunk-edge trays for morning tea, time
and progress had stood still with the P. & O. To be just, there were
electric-fan fittings in the cabins, but the fans were charged extra;
and there was a rumour, unverified, that one could eat on deck or in
one's cabin without a medical certificate from the doctor. All the rest
was under the old motto: 'Quis separabit' - 'This is quite separate
from other lines.'
'After all,' said an Anglo-Indian, whom I was telling about civilised
ocean travel, 'they don't want you Egyptian trippers. They're sure of
us, because - - ' and he gave me many strong reasons connected with
leave, finance, the absence of competition, and the ownership of the
Bombay foreshore.
