Recollections of My Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...passengers were warned to be prepared to go into them at a moment's notice. I went down to the cabin and told my wife what FIRE AT SEA. 247 had happened. She was perfectly tranquil and quiet as she had been during the siege, and set to work to make up a bundle of clothes and a few of our most valuable things, including some of my papers, and we waited for further orders, the fire meanwhile seeming to progress. The pumps were being worked vigorously, at first apparently without any effect; holes were then cut in the deck and volumes of water were sent down into the coal-bunkers, where the mischief had begun as the result of spontaneous combustion: this at length had the effect of putting out the fire, the danger was averted, and we continued our journey. I never saw anything better managed, and it reflected great credit on the discipline of the ship and the coolness and presence of mind of Captain Gaby and his officers. After this we had a good passage to Aden, where we visited the cantonments to see the natural water-tanks. The railway from Suez across the desert was not then completed, and we had to travel for miles in white vans, which rattled along at a great pace, until we reached the railway station at Zagazig, where we found trains for Cairo. Shepheard's Hotel was crowded, so we took up our quarters at the Hotel d'Orient, where, at the table d'hote, I observed a little old gentleman wearing a fez, who was treated with great deference by everybody and addressed as " mon g6n6ral " he was a bright, determined-looking little man, with a quick, keen eye. This was the celebrated French surgeon Clot Bey, the head of the Egyptian medical service. Some years previously, after a severe visitation of the plague, in which he had done valuable...