[p.187] they should have been in the boat.  Briefly, despite the rage of the sailors, who feared being too late for a second trip, we stood for some time on the beach before putting off.

>From the shore we poled to the little pier, where sat the Bey in person to perform a final examination of our passports.  Several were detected without the necessary document.  Some were bastinadoed, others were peremptorily ordered back to Cairo, and the rest were allowed to proceed.  At about 10 A.M. (6th July) we hoisted sail, and ran down the channel leading to the roadstead.  On our way we had a specimen of what we might expect from our fellow-passengers, the Maghrabi.[FN#1] A boat crowded with these

[p.188] ruffians ran alongside of us, and, before we could organise a defence, about a score of them poured into our vessel.  They carried things too with a high hand, laughed at us, and seemed quite ready to fight.  My Indian boy, who happened to let slip the word “Muarras,” narrowly escaped a blow with a palm stick, which would have felled a camel.  They outnumbered us, and they were armed; so that, on this occasion, we were obliged to put up with their insolence.

Our Pilgrim Ship, the Silk al-Zahab, or the “Golden Wire,” was a Sambuk, of about 400 ardebs (fifty tons), with narrow, wedge-like bows, a clean water-line, a sharp keel, and undecked, except upon the poop, which was high enough to act as a sail in a gale of wind.  She carried two masts, raking imminently forwards, the main being considerably larger than the mizzen; the former was provided with a huge triangular latine, very deep in the tack, but the second sail was unaccountably wanting.  She had no means of reefing, no compass, no log, no sounding lines, no spare ropes, nor even the suspicion of a chart:  in her box-like cabin and ribbed hold there was something which savoured of close connection between her model and that of the Indian Toni,[FN#2] or “dug-out.”

[p.189] Such, probably, were the craft which carried old Sesostris across the Red Sea to Deir; such were the cruisers which once every three years left Ezion-Geber for Tarshish; such the transports of which 130 were required to convey AElius Gallus, with his 10,000 men.  “Bakhshish” was the last as well as the first odious sound I heard in Egypt.  The owner of the shore-boat would not allow us to climb the sides of our vessel before paying him his fare, and when we did so, he asked for Bakhshish.  If Easterns would only imitate the example of Europeans,-I never yet saw an Englishman give Bakhshish to a soul,-the nuisance would soon be done away with.  But on this occasion all my companions complied with the request, and at times it is unpleasant to be singular.  The first look at the interior of our vessel showed a hopeless sight; Ali Murad, the greedy owner, had promised to take sixty passengers in the hold, but had stretched the number to ninety-seven.  Piles of boxes and luggage in every shape and form filled the ship from stem to stern, and a torrent of Hajis were pouring over the sides like ants into the East-Indian sugar-basin.  The poop, too, where we had taken our places, was covered with goods, and a number of pilgrims had established themselves there by might, not by right.