Chapter V

The Cyclone


We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, a land I was glad
to revisit, we only stopped a week while the Star of the South,
which we rejoined at Suez, coaled and went through the Canal.
This, however, gave us time to spend a few days in Cairo, visit
the Pyramids and Sakkara which Bastin and Bickley had never seen
before, and inspect the great Museum. The journey up the Nile was
postponed until our return. It was a pleasant break and gave
Bickley, a most omnivorous reader who was well acquainted with
Egyptian history and theology, the opportunity of trying to prove
to Bastin that Christianity was a mere development of the ancient
Egyptian faith. The arguments that ensued may be imagined. It
never seemed to occur to either of them that all faiths may be
and indeed probably are progressive; in short, different rays of
light thrown from the various facets of the same crystal, as in
turn these are shone upon by the sun of Truth.

Our passage down the Red Sea was cool and agreeable. Thence we
shaped our course for Ceylon. Here again we stopped a little
while to run up to Kandy and to visit the ruined city of
Anarajapura with its great Buddhist topes that once again gave
rise to religious argument between my two friends. Leaving Ceylon
we struck across the Indian Ocean for Perth in Western Australia.

It was a long voyage, since to save our coal we made most of it