ENPages
BSY_FB_27_1904-09-05
Weather perfect, but still hotter only a very gently breeze aft. Fans going all over the ship - women in white clothes fanning themselves on deck men in flannels and ducks. It has been getting gradually hotter and hotter for the last two days. It seems now like the tropics.
We sighted the island of Crete aout 2:30 P.M. Were about 2 miles off shore, which looked from the ship like a steep bank about 2 miles long sloping from an elevation of about 400 ft. near the centre down to nothing at the east & west ends. A light house on the highest point.
[Drawing of island sighting description in preceding paragraph] white bank
In the afternoon the men had a game of cricket on the upper deck. They enclose the deck in nets and have a jolly good time.
BSY_FB_27_1904-09-06
Weather perfect but quite warm. Nothing out of the ordinary occured. A pleasant lazy day at sea. Light revolving below the horizon about 9:30 P.M. was at Port Said where we arrived about 11:00 P.M. Immediately perfect? bedlam arose. Every port was closed the furniture all covered, the carpets taken up and coal barges came along side each with a weird torch burning on it for light. Then swarms of arabs nearly naked and each with a wicker basket of coal in his hand came swarming up the sides on planks each yellin at the top of his lungs. There was a coal shoot at the foot of my bed & the noise was so great that I could hardly make Littmann hear me across the room. With the heat, the dust, the noise & no ventilation I succeeded in sleeping about three hours.
BSY_FB_27_1904-09-07
Arose about 6 A.M. and getting on deck as soon as possible I found the ship covered with coal dust & everything repact?. Went ashore & to the custom house. No trouble with baggage. Drove around the town and took the 11 o'clock train for Cairo, but before doing so went back to the ship and down into the hold in search of a leather trunk which was missing. Very hot down there. Went through everything in hold. Did not find trunk. Left instructions with purser to send it to Port Said c/o Cook & Son & advised Cook to notify me of its arrival c/o Amer. Consul, Jerusalem. Port S. better town that I expected to find. Rail road to Cairo very good - cars good - dining car on train - good lunch - French spoken principally. For the first 1 1/2 hours of journey train goes along the Suez Canal & through a desert, then for the remainder of journey through cultivated fields all irrigated. Luxurious crops of maize and cotton, palm trees, camels, donkeys, cattle, arabic costumes worn by natives - once in a while a mosque and a mud villiage, then a good sized town. All the people seem to be good natured. It looks exactly like the pictures only much more picturesque. The coloring beautiful. Arrived in Cairo at 5 P.M. Went to Shepheards Hotel. Took bath. Only about 25 people in the house. Nothing dead about the town however. More to see in 1 block in 1 minute than in all of Briay? in an evening. Donkeys, camels, arabs, Mohamadan women with their faces covered. Dr. Kahle the director of the German School, and minister of the German Church dined with us. He is friend of Littmann's. They were class-mates at Halle. He took us to a café. We sat at a table in the street & watched the life of the place. Pedlars with every conceivable thing for sale. Performing monkey. Bartering. music etc.
BSY_FB_27_1904-09-08
Weather Hot. - Took a trolly car and went to the bottom of the hill in which is situated the Citadel, then took donkey to ride through a few streets to the top. Half way up, I leaned too heavily on one sturrup? and the saddle sliped? under the donkey's belly throwing me to the ground. Was not hurt. A comical sight so L & H. said. We arrived at the top and putting on slippers over our shoes and keeping our hats on went into the Mosque "Mohammed Ali" the finest Mosque in the world perhaps next to St. Sophia at Constantinople. You first enter a large court yard with the fountain in the center, and then into the beautiful Mosque with its wonderful alabaster and stained glass, and oriental rugs. From the side of the Mosque we had a magnificent view of the city of Cairo with its colorings of pale blue, drab and red, and then the Nile beyond and the desert with the three pyramids of Gizeh standing up in the distance - my first view of them and therefore impressive. We then went to Joseph's Well cut 250 ft. deep down in the solid rock with a stair way to the bottom cut out of the rock, spirally around the well. This more wonderful I think than the well at Nuremberg. In the afternoon we went to the pyramids by trolley from the bridge crossing the Nile, and saw of course the Sphynx. I was surrounded by about 12 or 15 arabs, donkeys and camels who followed me around. This is not of course the tourist season and so we had the whole place to ourselves. The Nile is just now about at its highest flood and covering the country for miles. We took donkeys and rode through the Arabic village and witnessed a arabic wedding festivity but were a little late to see much of it.
Continued under 1st. page in this book.
BSY_FB_27_1904-09-09
Weather Hot. This is the Mohammedin Sunday. We drove to the museum and library but they were closed. We then drove to the Zoological gardens, and walked around there. They are very pretty. I believe I should have called them "Botanical Gardens". There are many walks layed out with colored pebbles and small slabs of white marble into mosaics in many different designs mostly conventional but some new to me and very odd.
In the afternoon we drove through the Mousky the great street of the bazaars, & walked through some of the side streets going in a shop where the most beautiful oriental rugs were shown to us. They seem to have very large stacks?. The whole scene of the bazaars is much more picturesque and odd than I had imagined .. more so than any painting or stage picture of it. We drove from there to the great University of Moslem "Azhar", with over 11000 students. We were conducted through into an open court and then into a room about 250 ft. long on one side of the court & some 150 ft. wide. The floor was covered with matting and there were clusters of students sitting on the floor studying with a dull murmuring sound which filled the whole room, and swaying backward & forward as they tried to memorize their books. We then went through two or three of their vaults and chambers and out again into the court. We were hissed? quite a little by the moslems who do not like the intrusion of Foreigners. We then went to the ruins of a very large mosque called "Ibn Tulun". The mineret? is still standing and commands a fine view of Cairo, the Nile and pyramids. We climbed to the top by a stone stairway on the outside of the mineret?
cont'd on 2nd page.
