Читать книгу An Australian Ramble; Or, A Summer in Australia онлайн

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We stop a few hours at Suez, and early in the morning commence steaming down the Gulf of Suez, ere we float proudly over the waters of the Red Sea. At length it seems to me that we realize all that the poets have sung and painters have drawn of the Bay of Naples—unclouded skies and a sea of brilliant blue. All day long we are in sight of a romantic coast crowned with towering mountains, with diversified peaks that in the sun seem to glow with light and heat. As we approach they are brown or white or red, and then, behind, they seem dark and stern as they rise out of the sleeping waters. On our left are the Arabian mountains—Mount Sinai among them—more or less connected with the religion dear to all men of Anglo-Saxon race and tongue; the religion that has made modern history what it is—the religion which they tell us in the pulpit is yet to reign supreme. At dark—and it soon gets very dark in these regions, in spite of the grand stars which shine lustrously on us in a way of which no untravelled Englishman can form any adequate idea—we are on the Red Sea, having just passed the wreck of a steamer, as if to remind us that even in these days of science there are accidents arising from fogs and currents and hidden rocks and shoals which it is hard for any human ingenuity to guard against. Just now a good deal of interest attaches to the Red Sea. On our right are Suakim and Massowah, though too far off to be visible. Small as the Red Sea looks on the map, it is 1,200 miles long. Coral reefs and islands are so numerous that navigation is difficult and dangerous. The coast on either side seems deserted, and only now and then a lighthouse is to be seen, or the black hull of some small Arabian trader, with the well-known enormous sail from the yard-arm. However, there are one or two ports of importance on either side. The chief of all is Jeddah—with a population of 40,000—which is the port of the Mecca pilgrims, and which beside is the chief market for pearls and the black coffee and aromatic spices from Araby the Blest. Not far off is Mocha, a name familiar to British ears, though the place itself has fallen into decay.