Chapter VI: Foreword: To Boy-Men, (6)

Then we got into a deep ravine with red sandy cliffs on either side, and marching up its rocky bed we finally got in among the mountains, and there made our camp.

After getting our tent pitched, and while the men were finding firewood, my wife and I started a bit of engineering work in order to obtain a water supply.

We cleared out the little trickle of water which we found in the river bed, and digging a hollow in the sandy bed, we planted in it our india rubber bath, and diverted the trickle so that it ran into this, and so gave us a standing supply of clear water for our camp.

It was quite a triumph of engineering, though we got pretty wet and muddy in carrying it out.

Then we went exploring among the hills, following up our gorge. We soon found that it became a narrow fissure between the mountains, so narrow that the overhanging rocks often nearly touched each other high above our heads. It was a most weird place--exactly the sort of spot where one might expect a dragon to dwell.

* * * * *

ARAB POLITENESS.

A thing that strikes one about the Arabs is their politeness and readiness to do good turns.

Every Arab we met as we tramped across the plains greeted us with "good morning" in Arabic or French, and, though it must be a strange sight to them to see a white lady walking, and a man in shorts and shirt-sleeves (for I always wear the Scout kit for camping), they never showed undue curiosity, and never thought of jeering at us as I fear would be the case in many places in England.

If they saw our mules in trouble, or found us pitching our camp, they were always ready to lend a hand without any idea of getting a reward or a tip for doing so.

They have a good deal of the Scout in them, and many tribes of them do not know what it is to live in a house-they are "nomads," that is, they are wanderers, and live always in tents, moving with their flocks and families from place to place where the grass gives the best pasture for their sheep and goats.

Their tents are large, low, widespread awnings of black or brown goats'-hair cloth, supported on numerous short poles.

The tent ropes stretch in various directions, and round the whole they put up a hedge or "zareeba" of thorn bushes to keep out the jackals, and to keep in their goats during the night.

In front of the tent hangs a goatskin slung on a tripod, and full of water for the use of the family.

Many Arabs are well behaved and hospitable to strangers. But all are not so polite: there are some tribes who are pretty cunning thieves. Our two Arabs always patrolled round our camp at night with loaded rifle and revolver to drive off any would-be robbers, and our mules were shackled up at night with "handcuffs" on their fetlocks, and these were locked to prevent them being stolen.

* * * * *

THE HOT SPRINGS OF HAMMAM MOUSKETINE.

The first thing one notices about the hot springs of Hammam Mousketine which I mentioned above, is clouds of steam coming up out of the bushes at different points. Here you will find water bubbling up out of the ground and through a small mound of hard white or yellow crust.

The water is boiling hot, and the crust is formed from salts and chemicals contained in the water drying on the surface.

There are about a dozen of these springs and a large number of cones or mounds which have been springs, and which have choked themselves up or run dry.

Half a dozen of these cones, of about ten feet high, stand together in a group, and the Arabs have a curious story about them, which I will tell you in the next paragraph. Also close by is a great waterfall about a hundred yards wide by fifty feet high, but all turned to stone by the same process.

* * * * *

THE ARAB MARRIAGE.

A rich Arab named Ali Cassam had a beautiful sister named Ourida.

Ali thought her the best woman in the world, and although she was his sister he determined to marry her.

Such a marriage is considered just as unholy by the Mohammedans as it is with us, and so everybody was against it. But Ali was great and powerful, and he thought that by making a magnificent show of it he would get over the feelings of those who said it was wrong.

So a splendid feast was arranged, and the ceremony began on a very big scale.

The priest Abdallah undertook to carry out the religious part of it, and had just taken the first step in the marriage service of placing the bridegroom's hand on the bride's head when there was a tremendous flash of lightning, fire rushed out of the earth, the day was suddenly turned into night, and boiling water spouted up in all directions.

When the sun came out again the wedding party were all there in their places, but all were turned into stone, and the boiling water still bubbles up out of the earth round about them.

Personally I could not recognise exactly the actors in this drama; it needed a lot of imagination to believe that one mound represented Ali and another Ourida, while Abdallah was recognisable by his turban!

This was all that I saw of them.

* * * * *

A GOOD TURN TO A DONKEY.

Owing to the absence of roads in the country the Arabs do not use carts. All the carrying is done by camels, mules, or donkeys. The donkeys are the commonest, being the cheapest; and very patient, hard-working little servants they are.

On one of our tramps we came across an Arab standing very forlornly by his donkey, which had fallen down. There was the little beast lying on its side with its huge load of halfa grass partly across it, and the owner quite at a loss to know what to do. This "halfa" or "esparto" grass is collected by the Arabs on the mountain side, and brought down and sold to merchants to go and make paper in England. It weighs very heavy, which we soon found when we went to the assistance of the Arab, and lifted the load off the donkey. The little animal seemed in no hurry to rise from his comfortable position on the ground, and the Arab was proceeding with a big stick to hint to him that it was time to get up, when my wife intervened, and showed the Arab that this was no way to treat the good little beast.

Having induced him at last to rise, the load of grass was up-ended, the donkey put broadside on to it, and the burden was quickly hoisted on to its back again.

So we had been able to do a little good turn to the man, though the donkey did not probably appreciate it quite so much at first, but he did in the end, for as soon as his load was securely on his back the man started to whack him on along his road.

But again my wife put in a remonstrance, and the Arab, grasping her meaning, refrained from using his stick, and coming back to us he gave us each a hearty handshake, as if to show his gratitude for our help and his determination to treat his four-footed friend with greater kindness in the future.

* * * * *

A CAMP INVENTION.

We were awfully sorry to finish our tramping camp. It was over much too soon, but in the short time that we were at it we picked up lots of health and enjoyment, and also a good many useful camp hints.

One of these--like so many great discoveries--was found by accident.

My wife, like a good Scout, kept everything very clean in camp, and our joke was that whenever there was a moment to spare she would set to work to scrub the saucepan. That seemed to be her favourite job, using a handful of sand and a twist of coarse grass, and the result was a bright, clean saucepan in which to cook our food.

A good deal of sickness comes in camps when dirty saucepans are used.

When she was not cleaning the saucepan her other spare minutes were spent in cleaning up the camp ground, and burning all scraps.

One morning when doing this she made the great discovery. It was this--how to make toast without a good fire. She had wrapped some unused slices of bread in some waste paper, and put the whole lot among the ashes of our palm-leaf fire in order to burn them.

The paper gradually charred and burnt itself away, and left the bread behind it nicely roasted into crisp brown toast!

* * * * *

TRUFFLE HUNTING.

Another tip which we learnt in camp was how to find truffles. These are a kind of root akin to a mushroom, which grow entirely underground. They are very nice to eat, and command a good price in the market.

In France the people find them with pigs; the pigs are able to scent them, and proceed to root them up with their snouts, when the man steps in and collars the truffle.

The Arabs showed us how to find them on the desert, where they are quite plentiful.

We had to examine the ground pretty carefully as we went along, and where we saw a few little cracks in the surface leading out from one centre where the earth bulged up a little--there we dug down two or three inches and found the truffle.

* * * * *

AN EX-BOY SCOUT.

At one railway station in Algeria we found a motor-car waiting to take us to our destination. The driver, unlike so many motor-car drivers, set to work to carry our luggage himself, and worked for us most willingly and well. He spoke English perfectly, with a South African accent.

We soon found that he came from the Transvaal, and had learnt his energetic helpfulness and courtesy through having been a Boy Scout in Johannesburg!

* * * * *

THE STORY OF THE SIWASH ROCK.

The story of the "Arab Marriage" reminds me of another legend about rocks, but this one was a Red Indian story about a rock in British Columbia, Canada.

The Arab story showed that the Arabs respect decent behaviour, and this one, on the opposite side of the world, shows that the Red Indians also give honour to manliness and purity.

Just at the entrance to the harbour of Vancouver stands a solitary pinnacle of rock, straight and upright. It is called the Siwash Rock.

A young chief had made himself renowned for his wonderful courage in war and for his sense of duty to his tribe and to his religion, and for his courtesy to women.

He had married a wife, and when she was about to give birth to a child they did as laid down in the laws of the tribe, that is, they both bathed in the sea to be so clean that no wild animal should be able to scent them. This would ensure their child being clean in thought and deed.

The woman returned to their tent, but the young chief went on swimming to make sure that he should be clean and pure for the birth of his son.

While he swam a canoe came along with four giants in it. These shouted to him to get out of their way, but he only laughed back at them that he was swimming on important business.

But they shouted to him that he must cease swimming in the channel, as they were messengers of the great God, and that if he did not they would turn him into a fish, or a tree, or a stone.

But he only replied that he must be clean for the birth of his child, and therefore he meant to go on swimming, no matter what the risk was to him.

This quite nonplussed the giants.

They could not run him down, because if their canoe were to touch a human being their power over men would be lost.

Just then, when they were pausing, wondering what to do, they heard the cry of a baby come from the woods on the shore.

Then one of the giants stood up and chanted to the swimmer a message from the great God that, because he had bravely held out against all their threats in order that his child should be the son of a clean father, he should never die, but should remain for ever as a reminder to other warriors to do their duty, and to obey the law of the tribe. And his wife and child, too, should be for ever near him.

So the moment he touched the shore he became the great upright rock, now called the Siwash Rock. And a short distance from him, in the woods, are two more rocks, a big one and a little one beside it--his wife and child.

They are monuments to the Indian belief that those who do their duty in spite of any difficulty or danger are the best men and the greatest heroes.

* * * * *

TUNIS.

The Souks.

Perhaps you do not know what a "souk" is?

Imagine yourself in a long, narrow tunnel lit with skylights here and there, with small open shops along either side. That is what one of the "souks" or bazaars in Tunis is like.

There are miles of them, and they are generally crowded from end to end with the white-cloaked Arabs and shrouded figures of women with black masks over their faces, all busy shopping, buying or selling.

Each trade has a souk to itself. Thus, in one souk you will find nothing but shoemakers' shops one after another, in the next will be all coppersmiths, in another the cloth merchants, and so on.

There still stand the "Bardo" or Palace of the "Bey" or King of Tunis, and the "kasbah" or castle in which the Tunisian pirates of old days used to imprison the Christians whom they captured at sea; and there is still the old slave market where they used to sell them.

Many an English sailor has been lost for ever to his home and friends in that dismal place.

But on one occasion the prisoners got the better of their captors. As many as ten thousand of them had been collected, and they made a plan to escape, and, rising against their captors, they overwhelmed them by force of numbers and got away.

"Home, Sweet Home,"

An interesting spot in the city is the old Christian cemetery, in which lies buried the man who wrote the well-known song, "Home, Sweet Home." Most people think that it is an English song, but the composer was in reality an American--a clerk in the Consulate--named John Howard Payne.

* * * * *

CARTHAGE.

Close to Tunis is the site of Carthage, the capital of the great country of that name in North Africa.

There is very little to be seen of it to-day, for the city was destroyed by its enemies, and the stones were taken to build the present town of Tunis.

It was founded nearly 900 years before the time of Christ, and was for hundreds of years a powerful and prosperous country till 146 years before Christ, when it was conquered by the Romans, and the city was given over to the flames.

The city was at that time twelve miles round, and was defended by huge walls sixty feet high and thirty-three feet thick with rooms inside them. In the lower storey were stables for horses and elephants (of which there were 300), and the upper storey served as barracks for over 20,000 soldiers, who formed the garrison for defence of the city.

But very few of these soldiers were Carthaginians. The Carthaginian young men did not care about soldiering: they preferred to loaf about and do nothing but watch public games, and foreigners or poor men were hired to do the soldiering for the country.

The country was large and rich, and had many colonies oversea and plenty of ships.

It looked as though no enemy could ever arise to come and attack her. But what seemed so unlikely actually happened in the end.

The Romans had no great fleet to speak of, but they had a fine army, and they meant business. They put their soldiers into crowded transports, and sailed across the short distance of ocean that lay between the two countries--not much farther than Hamburg in Germany is from Hull in Yorkshire.

Thus the country which, like Germany, had a fine, well-trained army, landed a force in Carthaginia, the country which, like Britain, had a great fleet and great colonies, but only a small army, and it smashed up the Carthaginians through their not Being Prepared for it.

Boar Hunting.

From Tunis one sees to the southward a mountain called Zaghouan. Though forty miles away it was from here that the Carthaginians got their water supply, and they conveyed it by a small canal, which they built all the way to Carthage.

That canal still serves to bring the water into Tunis, though it is now a good deal over two thousand years old!

I went to Zaghouan once to hunt wild boars. We got on that occasion a hyena. It was an exciting time when our Arab beaters, working in a big circle, gradually closed in on him from all sides.

It was exciting because every beater carried a gun, and every man meant having a shot at that hyena.

You can imagine the fun of having a lot of wildly excited Arabs firing from the opposite side of the circle straight in your direction at the animal in between you!

Fortunately on this occasion the first few shots killed him, and there were no other deaths to record.

The Arabs themselves see no special danger in it, because, they say, the guns are all pointing downwards at the animal, and if the bullet misses him it will only bury itself in the ground.

That is all very well, but it might as likely as not hit a stone and glance up again and catch one in the eye or elsewhere that might be unpleasant.

Personally, I did not hold with that kind of shooting, but the Arabs seemed to enjoy it so much and were so cheery and jolly over it that I, too, had to smile and look as if I liked it.

There is plenty of game near Tunis, and this day we saw two dead wild boars being brought in.

* * * * *

ELEPHANTS USED IN WAR.

In the old days, as I told you, Carthage was the London of that time, being a city of 700,000 inhabitants, and the capital of a great empire, which had overseas colonies in Spain, Corsica, and Sicily.

For a very long time it was at war with the Romans, who were the great military nation then, and at first the Carthaginians got the better of their adversaries.

One great help to them was their corps of elephants. These elephants had scythes fixed on to their tusks, so that when they charged they not only cut down the serried ranks of their enemies, but they also trampled them underfoot.

In their great fight outside Carthage, the army belonging to the Carthaginians under a Greek officer, Xanthippus, carried the day with a grand charge of elephants, and thus defeated and routed the Romans under Regulus.

Of the 20,000 men who formed the Roman force only 2000 escaped. Regulus and a number of his best officers were captured and held as prisoners of war for several years.

* * * * *

A BRAVE MAN FACES TORTURE.

As time went on, the Carthaginians tried to make peace, and they sent their prisoner, Regulus, over to Rome to persuade the Roman Government to come to terms. They made him promise on his word of honour that if he failed to bring about peace he would return again to Carthage, and become a prisoner once more.

When he got to Rome, instead of urging them to make peace, he told his countrymen to go on with the war.

The Roman Government were inclined to do this, but at the same time they saw that if they did, Regulus would probably be put to death by the Carthaginians for not having procured peace, so they did not know what to do.

Regulus, seeing their difficulty, told them that he was an old man and his life did not matter, and he pretended that he had already taken slow poison. So the Romans resolved to continue the war, and Regulus went back to Carthage, according to his promise, and gave himself up to the Carthaginians.

You might think that they would have admired him for his courage and sense of honour, but the Carthaginians, as I told you, were a cowardly lot; they hired soldiers to do their fighting for them, and, like all cowards, they were cruel, too; so instead of respecting this plucky old Roman, they punished him by shutting him into a box lined with sharp spikes, so that he could get no rest nor sleep.

Then they cut off his eyelids, and took him out of his dark cell into the blazing sunlight, so that he was blinded, and finally they killed him by crucifying him.

Supposing that we were invaded by an enemy who had a strong army, and we had nothing but paid soldiers to defend ourselves with because our men were too cowardly or too unpatriotic to learn how to defend their homes. If such an enemy were to defeat our weak army, and then order us to destroy every house in London, how should we like it?

Should not we feel, like the Carthaginians, enraged with our Government who had not made the country strong, and also enraged with ourselves because we had not trained ourselves to defend our homes before it was too late?

The Carthaginians in despair sent more messengers to the Roman general at their gates, begging for thirty days' grace in which to make their arrangements, but the conquerors sent these men back with the order that the destruction of the city was to begin at once.

Then a change came over the Carthaginians. From a mob of despairing, panic-stricken wretches they organised themselves into a defence force. They barred the city gates, and started to make weapons to replace those which they had surrendered to their enemies.

Night and day they worked--men, women, and children. They manufactured daily 100 shields, 300 swords, 500 spears, and 1000 balls for their catapults, and the women cut off their hair and plaited it into ropes for the catapults.

* * * * *

A CATAPULT.

The catapult which the Carthaginians used was not the little implement that a boy uses nowadays; it was a big kind of windlass, by which a number of ropes were twisted up tightly till they acted as a spring to a strong wooden arm at the end of which was a leather cup. This held a stone about the size of a man's head.

When the spring was let go, this arm was flung violently forward, and the stone was thereby hurled into the air, and flew with great force for 400 or 500 yards.

The catapults served the purpose of artillery in those days when gunpowder had not been invented.

The Carthaginians, when a favourable wind blew, sent a lot of fire boats filled with faggots and tar to drift among the Roman fleet and burn their ships.

They also got together the wrecks of their own ships which had been smashed up by the enemy, and from them they built up others and sallied out of port in order to astonish the Romans.

But they did not make any bold attacks, consequently the Romans only sat tight and got reinforcements over, and in the end they attacked and forced their way into the city. There the fighting in the streets was very close and bitter.

For six days it went on, but the stern discipline and valour of the Romans gradually told, and very soon the whole city was in their hands. Fifty thousand inhabitants were allowed to escape, and the city was given over to the flames.

One lot of defenders the Romans refused to spare. Some 900 of them took refuge, and made a last stand, in the Temple of AEsculapius, and among them was the wife of Hasdrubal, the commander of the Carthaginians, and her two sons.

Hasdrubal himself saved his skin by surrendering to Scipio, the Roman commander, but his wife stood up on the temple, which was now on fire, and reviled him as a coward. Then she killed her two boys, and threw herself into the fire rather than give in to the Latin enemy.

* * * * *

MALTA.

A Home of Scouting.

Malta was a home of Scouting, since the Knights of St. John, who settled there after the Crusades, were typical Scouts.

They knew how to Be Prepared

I remember reading the diary of a traveller who visited Malta in their time--some three hundred years ago. He said that one morning a pirate ship was sighted off the island. The Grand Master at once ordered one of the fighting ships to get ready, and called upon the knights to man it. Any who desired to go were to parade in front of the Castile Palace (now the Mess house of the Royal Artillery). Some fifty or sixty would be sufficient, but instead of this over three hundred turned up on parade with their retainers and men-at-arms ready to start then and there.

In the Armoury can be seen among many others the suit of armour worn by the Grand Master Wignacourt.

One cannot but admire the beautiful fitting of the different folds of armour, made so that the arms and legs could be bent and yet thoroughly protected against wounds; also the whole is beautifully engraved with ornamental designs. Among these a quick-sighted Scout will at once notice the fleur-de-lys, or Scout's badge, on the breast.

* * * * *

NEVER SAY DIE.

The badge also occurs on another badge of the knights, that is, on the Maltese Cross, which all of them wore. This cross was eight-pointed in shape, and was originally derived from the skull and crossbones; it came from the crossbones, and served to remind the knights that it was their duty to fight to the death and never to give in.

Their motto might well have been that which the Boy Scouts use to-day: _Never say die till you are dead_--struggle on against any difficulty or danger, don't give in to it, and you will probably come out successful in the end.

* * * * *

THE MALTESE CROSS.

Most of the Oversea Scouts wear, in addition to the Scout's badge of the fleur-de-lys, the badge belonging to their country. For instance, the Canadian Scouts wear the maple leaf, and the New Zealanders wear a leaf of the tree fern.

If the Maltese Scouts want a badge of their own they could not do better than adopt the Maltese Cross of the knights, and then stick to, and act up to the meaning of it.

* * * * *

HOW MALTA CAME TO BE BRITISH.

When Napoleon was trying to conquer the whole of Europe a hundred years ago, he proceeded to take Malta.

But the Maltese people rose, and held the rest of the island against him, and sent and asked the British under Lord Nelson to come to their assistance.

This was promptly done, and the British Fleet laid siege to the French in Valetta, so that no supplies of food could be brought to the French, and some British troops were landed to help the Maltese.

Thus the French were defeated, and the Maltese handed themselves and their island over to become a colony of the British Empire.

One celebrated officer who largely helped to defeat the French in Malta was Admiral Troubridge.

Someone was condoling with Nelson once on his losing his right arm in action. The gallant seaman replied cheerily:

"My good sir, I have got three right arms. Here is one (raising his left arm), and there are my other two (pointing to Capt. Ball and Capt. Troubridge)."

At the time of the British investment of the French in Malta, the Maltese themselves were suffering from famine, and their state was so deplorable, and the British authorities so slow to help them, that Commodore Troubridge could bear it no longer, and to ease their sufferings he caused some grain ships at Messina to be seized and brought to Malta and their contents to be given out to feed the starving people.

Commodore Troubridge began life as a ship's boy at fifteen, and rose from seaman to be an officer through his steady attention to his duty, so in all ways he was a good example for a Scout to follow.

Malta remains to-day a British colony, small in size--not much bigger than the Isle of Wight--but having a numerous population of people speaking their own language, and at the same time loyal to King George and the British Empire.

Malta is chiefly valuable as having a harbour, dockyard, and coal stores for our Mediterranean Fleet, and is therefore strongly fortified and garrisoned by British troops, both infantry and artillery.

The Maltese themselves supply some companies of Fortress Artillery and two battalions of Infantry Militia.

* * * * *

MALTESE BOY SCOUTS.

Now, also, they have their Boy Scouts, whom I saw during my visit.

For Sea Scouts it is an ideal place, with its fine harbours, and its coasts with their numerous creeks and landing places.

The warm climate also induces much to bathing, and the Maltese are naturally good swimmers and handy men in boats. Their boats are very graceful in shape; they are called "daisas," which is spelt "dghaisa," but I never could see the use of the letters "gh" in the word; it sounds all right without them.

* * * * *

MY DGHAISA.

Long ago I was quartered in Malta for three years, and I greatly enjoyed my life there, especially the boating and the bathing.

After the South African War the people of Malta very kindly sent me a beautiful present, and, I suppose on account of my known love of boating, it took the form of a silver model of a sailing dghaisa. It was so accurately and carefully made that not only did it include oars and boat-hooks, etc., but even the thole-pins and the scoop for bailing out water.

I was, of course, delighted to see the place again after twenty years' absence, and to see so many of my old friends. Nothing seemed very much changed in all that time, except that the Boy Scouts had come into existence there as in every other important part of the British Empire.

* * * * *

SICILY.

Any boy who has read Marryat's _Midshipman Easy_ will remember how that cheeky young Naval officer and a friend of his went for a spree in an Italian sailing boat from Malta to Sicily, which is eighty miles away, and how their spree turned into a pretty desperate adventure.

The boys were attacked by their boat's crew during the night, and they only saved themselves by using their pistols on the Italian desperadoes. They eventually landed on the Sicilian coast not far from Syracuse.

Anyone who has read Count Erbach's diary of his visit to Malta in the time of the Knights of St. John will remember his exciting experiences when, on leaving the island, for Sicily, the vessel in which he sailed had got within sight of Syracuse when a rakish-looking craft, which proved to be an Algerian pirate, ran out from under the land, and chased and captured his ship, and carried him off a prisoner to Tunis.

Going farther back, every boy who has read his Greek and Roman history knows how Syracuse was in ancient days one of the great war harbours of the Mediterranean.

It was the arsenal where fleets fitted out, and the depot where they brought back their booties of valuables and slaves after their victorious raids.

You may imagine, then, that it was interesting to us to steam into the beautiful bay on a calm, sunny morning, past the old fort which guards the entrance, and into the back of the island on which the town now stands.

All was looking sweet and peaceful where for hundreds of years had been the scene of strife and adventure. The Cathedral and Circus.

The walls of the cathedral are supported by immense columns, which, 500 years before Christ was born, formed the walls of the Temple of Jupiter.

Many are the signs of the Greek and Roman occupation of the place.

We visited the great open-air circus where gladiators used to fight each other to the death, and where slaves were given to lions to devour before the eager eyes of ten thousand spectators. The seats are still there, and the dungeons of the slaves, and the dens of the wild beasts.

* * * * *

THE EAR OF DIONYSIUS.

In the neighbourhood are the great quarries in which the slaves not only worked, but also lived. They were made to cut the walls so that they inclined inwards, and therefore could not be climbed.

The only entrance to the quarries was by ladder, so there was no escape for a man once he got in there.

There are huge caves cut in the walls of the quarries in which the slaves lived, and one of these caves has been cut into a narrow cleft exactly on the principle of the inside of your ear. So that anyone sitting at the top of the cleft can hear every word that is being spoken or even whispered in the cave below.

It is said that Dionysius, the ruler of Syracuse, had this made so that he could sit in the cleft (where there is a little chamber with private door) unknown to the people in the cave, and there he could overhear all that the prisoners talked about and plotted among themselves.

The whole cave is called "The Ear of Dionysius."

I remember a similar kind of "ear" in a natural cave in Matabeleland. It was here that one of the native sorcerers used to hide himself, and when he whispered through a crack in the rocks it could be heard all over the cave.

The people believed that it was the voice of a god speaking to them, so they used to come and pray to him for advice, and the old villain told them that they must rise up and murder all the white people, and their chief, Lobengula, who had long been dead, would come to life and lead them against their enemies once more.

He had nearly persuaded them to come out on the war-path, when Burnham, the American scout, made his way into the secret part of the cave and shot the supposed god while he was preaching murder.

* * * * *

CARTS IN SICILY.

A curious thing that strikes you in Sicily is the kind of cart and harness used by the country people.

The cart is a light, two-wheeled affair of an ordinary kind, but every inch of it inside and out as far as the ends of the shafts and down the spokes of the wheels, is painted in gaudy colours, for the most part yellow, blue, red, and green.

Pictures of incidents in Bible history, of the war against the Turks in Tripoli, of ballet dancers, etc., are to be seen on most of these carts, while on others ornamental patterns only are painted.

Then the harness of the horse is of a very gaudy kind when new, but being largely made up of cheap gold braid and coloured cloth, it soon fades and looks tawdry.

* * * * *

A MUSICAL SADDLE.

In place of a bit there is a steel noseband on the horse's bridle by which he is driven and guided, and instead of the ordinary pad on the horse's back, a great ornamental brass affair is used.

Years ago I bought one of these pads and brought it home as a curiosity. A friend met me as I was bringing it along, and said:

"Hullo! what on earth is this? Surely it must be some sort of musical instrument. Look here! I am getting up a concert; you _must_ bring your instrument and play it there. Will you?"

Of course, I always like to oblige a friend, and I did not like to disappoint this one, so I meekly promised.

I chose a beautiful piece of high-class music, and got the orchestra to practise it over as accompaniment to my instrument, the "sellura." I tuned it by winding the brass flags which adorn it.

I fingered the knobs up and down the front of it as if they were the notes; the big projections on either side I pulled as if to alter the tone.

And the music? Well, I got that out of a comb and paper affixed to the back, and into which I sang.

But, mixed up with the other instruments, it sounded all right, and I got lots of applause and lots of questions afterwards as to where you could buy these wonderful organs, and how long did it take one to learn to play them, and so on!

* * * * *

TAORMINA.

Six hundred feet up on a mountain spur overhanging the sea stands the little town of Taormina.

Long ago it was chosen as a beauty spot by the Romans and Greeks, and here they had their villas and baths and theatre.

The theatre stands to this day, in ruins, it is true, but sufficiently whole to show what an ancient theatre was like.

One can sit in the upper circle and look down upon the "pit" and "orchestra," and the marble pillars and wall which formed the back of the stage in those days in place of scenery.

But an earthquake has thrown down the greater part of the back wall, and has thereby opened up a beautiful view of the coast of blue water and white sand far below, and of the purple slopes and snowy crest of Mount Etna above--a scene such as no scene painter could have equalled.

Among the quaint and ancient buildings of the town stand the old monastery and church of San Domenico. The monastery is now the chief hotel, and with the splendid view from its windows and its pretty gardens makes a charming place to stay at in this most charming spot.

* * * * *

NAPLES. - VESUVIUS.

Naples is a city lying around a great bay on the Italian coast, and behind it, about ten miles distant, rises the double-peaked mountain, Vesuvius. Vesuvius is, as you know, a volcano and a thin cloud of smoke is always coming out of it.

When I visited Naples a few years ago, the mountain was shaped like this:

Now it is like this

It lost its peak in one night, and I was there the night that it happened.

I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel, when I was awakened in the middle of the night by heavy bangings, and it at once occurred to me that the artillery were firing guns in the street below my window.

I thought: "Hullo, here's a revolution or something going on," and I rushed out on to my balcony.

The street below was empty, but in other streets I could hear people calling to each other and crying out.

Then came more of the awful banging, like claps of thunder, all round. Then there was suddenly a great blaze of red light up in the sky, and I realised that Vesuvius was breaking out.

It was just like a fountain of fire squirting up, with volumes of smoke and steam above it all lit up with the glow, and round it jagged, white lightning kept blazing and darting about.

Soon the flames were dimmed, the whole outbreak became a dull glare, even the houses round us grew indistinct, and what seemed to be a regular London fog set in.

But it was not a fog; it was a cloud of light dust--the ashes from the volcano, which had begun to fall over Naples.

When daylight came you could no longer see the mountain, although you could hear it rumbling like thunder.

You could scarcely see across the street, so thick was the ash fog. The fine dust got into one's eyes and nose, and everything, indoors and out, was covered with a thick coating of grit.

At the foot of Vesuvius a great stream of red-hot lava mud slid down the mountain side, straight across fields and roads, and over farms and villages, slowly but steadily pushing its way, the country people fleeing before it with such of their property as they were able to bundle on to carts or carry away with them.

* * * * *

POMPEII.

But on the whole the people were not so frightened after the first outbreak as one might have expected.

Yet they had every reason to be, because near the mountain stand the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was overwhelmed, not by lava, but by just such a fall of ashes from a great eruption of Vesuvius about thirty years after the death of Christ.

The ashes had fallen lightly at first, but so thickly that in a very short space of time the whole city was buried under tons of it, and the people were crushed or suffocated in their homes.

You will find the whole story of it in the novel called _The Last Days of Pompeii_, but if you ever go to Pompeii the ruins which have been dug out tell their own story better than any book can do.

You walk through silent streets of beautifully decorated houses, of shops, theatres, and baths; the pavement is scored with the wheelmarks of the chariots, and in some of the houses the skeletons of the inhabitants are still to be seen.

* * * * *

BOY SCOUTS OF NAPLES.

To-day the whole country around the foot of the mountain is thickly populated, and towns and villages stand on the slopes of Vesuvius as if there were no danger of his ever breaking out again.

And Naples itself is a great, flourishing city with big factories, and a busy seaport where ships of every nation congregate.

And last, but not least, it has its Boy Scouts.

They are Italian boys, but they dress and work just the same as their British brothers. They have done a lot of camping out, and are all very good at cooking their grub. And also they do a bit of sea scouting in the splendid harbour and bay of Naples.

ON AN ORIENT STEAMSHIP

OUR FLOATING HOME.

Our ship of twelve thousand tons, R.M.S. _Orsova_, was more like a floating hotel than a sea-going vessel, and the passengers living in bright, comfortable cabins with a fine dining saloon and first-rate food, could hardly imagine the work that was going on in other parts of the ship to insure their travelling with such ease and speed and safety.

A tour round the ship, such as we made one day, is full of interest and wonder. The second-class passengers are housed and fed just as well as those in the first-class, and there is accommodation for 230 of them.

In the third-class, again, they are wonderfully comfortable in cabins for two or for four people each, with nice dining and sitting-saloons, and a roomy, roofed-in deck where they can enjoy the fresh air in all weathers. There is room for 800 of these, and the cost of the journey from England to Australia is only 17 Pounds, which means board and lodging of the best description for six weeks while doing the journey out.

The crew, of course, live forward, and, including seamen, stokers, engineers, stewards, etc., they number about 300 men. On the navigating staff of officers, quartermasters, and look-out men depends much of our safety at sea.

Then down in the depths of the ship are the engineers and stokers, who make the ship go. Our chief engineer, like all chief engineers, is a Scotsman, and he loves and takes a pride in his engines, and is glad to show them.

In Rudyard Kipling's song of the chief engineer, he describes him as looking upon his engines as almost the work of God, in their wonderful power and intricate working.

* * * * *

IN THE ENGINE ROOM.

And it is indeed an impressive sight to stand below these great monsters of steel and watch them faithfully and untiringly pounding at their work, all in order, and exactly in agreement with each other, taking no notice of night or day, of storm or calm, but slinging along at all times, doing their duty with an energetic goodwill which makes them seem almost human--almost like gigantic Boy Scouts!

The great steel shaft which the four pistons keep driving round is nearly 100 yards in length, and carries the big bronze screw propeller at its end, which thrusts the ship along. There are two of these, one on each side of the ship, which is therefore called a twin-screw vessel.

There are four cylinders to each shaft, and the same lot of steam is used, passing from one cylinder to the other, beginning with the small high-pressure cylinder, which it enters at its highest strength, something like 250 lb. to the square inch, and ending with the big low-pressure cylinder, where the pressure is only about 5 lb.

Then there are numbers of other engines. One for condensing the salt water from the sea and making it into fresh water for the boilers. This is done by boiling up the salt water so that the watery part of it becomes steam, while the salty part remains behind as salt; the steam, when cooled, becomes fresh water, and is then fit to be used in the boilers to make steam.

* * * * *

THE STOKEHOLD.

Then we go into the stokehold among the mighty boilers. Here are powerful, grimy men at work getting coal out of the coal bunkers, and shovelling it into the furnaces.

It sounds easy to shovel coal on to a fire, but it takes a lot of practice to get the knack of stoking a fire properly, and a lot of strength and skill to throw great shovelfuls quickly and well into the right part of the furnace.

The stokers work in gangs for four hours at a time, under "leading stokers," whose duty it is to see that the proper pressure of steam is kept up in the boilers by the heat of the fires.

Anyone who has travelled on an ocean-going steamer will know the sound which comes up from the interior of the ship every twenty minutes or so, which sounds like a rataplan being hammered by someone for his own amusement.

This is in reality the signal which is given by striking iron with a shovel, and can be heard by the men all over the stokehold, telling them to stoke up their various fires.

Besides the main engines there are pumping engines for supplying water to the boilers and to the various parts of the ship. Then there are ice-making machines for keeping the food-storage rooms cold, and electric dynamos for supplying electric light all over the vessel, and for use in the laundry.

* * * * *

THE LAUNDRY.

This is an interesting department. Here all the bed sheets, towels, tablecloths of the ship, and the linen of passengers are washed, dried, and ironed by machinery.

The linen is put into a circular "drum" full of soapy water and whirled round and round till well washed.

It is then partly dried by being put into another metal tub, which is whirled round by electricity at such a pace that the water flies out of the clothes. These are then put into a kind of mangle between hot steel rollers, which squeeze out any water that remains, and at the same time so heats the things that they come out quite dry and ironed into the airing-room, where they receive a final drying in hot air.

The ironing of small articles like shirts and blouses is done by a few laundrymaids using flat-irons heated by electricity.

* * * * *

OUR BIRTHDAY CAKE.

While on board we celebrated our birthday--that is, my wife's birthday and my own (for by a curious chance we were both born on the same day, though not in the same year!)--and at tea-time a beautiful birthday cake appeared upon the scene, beautifully sugared and decorated with our names and appropriate inscriptions, just as if it had been made ashore.

I do not know how the knowledge of the birthday got about, but I do know that the cake was a most excellent one, and the kind thought of the baker in making it was greatly appreciated by both of us.

* * * * *

FOOD AND FEEDING.

After seeing the stokehold, the engines, and the laundry, we visited the kitchens. The feeding of the passengers is an important point, for on board are no fewer than 200 first-class, 230 second-class, 800 third-class passengers, and over 300 officers and crew--more than 1500 people altogether.

The voyage to Australia takes nearly six weeks, so you can imagine that a pretty large amount of food has to be carried on board to take the ship out and home again.

Tons of fresh meat and vegetables, butter, and eggs are stored in ice-cold cellars. Each day a supply is brought up and put into iced larders for that day's issue.

Here are some of the amounts taken in the ship for one voyage: 5 tons bacon, 50,000 eggs, 6 1/2 tons butter, 45,000 oranges, 9000 lb. jam.

In the great kitchen are a dozen cooks at work preparing the meals for all classes--the cooking is exactly the same for all. Also the quality of food is the same, except that the first-class get more variety and choice of different dishes. In the bakery is made the daily supply of bread for the whole ship, and also baked puddings, cakes, and sweetmeats.

* * * * *

POTATO PEELING.

There were lots of interesting machines used in the kitchen to save time and labour.

For instance, there was a machine for peeling potatoes; a round metal tub in which the potatoes were rushed round and round until their skins were rubbed off, and they were ready for the cooking-pot.

There were egg-boiling machines, which, working by clockwork, kept the eggs in boiling water for whatever time was desired, and then took them out without any attention on the part of the cook.

There was a bread-slicing machine and a plate-washing machine, the dirty plates being placed in iron racks and lowered into a tank where boiling water is dashed on to them from both sides, so that they clean themselves in no time. There was also a machine for kneading the dough for making bread.

In fact, the whole place was a marvel of work and organisation all compressed into a very small space, and yet done most successfully and cleanly.

* * * * *

A GOOD DINNER.

Here is one day's bill of fare for the third-class passengers, which shows that they do not fare badly. I had some of it myself, and it was excellent.

BREAKFAST

Porridge with Milk Yarmouth Bloaters Hashed Meat Cold Corned Pork Bread Butter Jam Marmalade Tea Coffee Cocoa

DINNER

Mulligatawny Soup Roast Mutton Potatoes Mashed Pumpkin Suet Pudding with Syrup Children--Milk Pudding Bread Cheese Biscuits

TEA

Lancashire Hot-Pot Cold Meat Salad Pickles Bread Butter Jam Marmalade Currant Cake

SUPPER

Bread Butter Cocoa Biscuits and Cheese Gruel for Infants if required Cocoa or Coffee with Biscuits at 6.30 a.m.

* * * * *

AN ECHO OF THE ZULU WAR.

Of two of the cooks with whom I talked, one had been twenty-three years in the service of the Orient Company and the other twenty-six years: and nearly all the ship's company had been in this ship four years, though their engagement only lasts for one voyage. So it looks as though the Orient were a satisfactory line to serve with.

One of the cooks had been a soldier in the Wiltshire Regiment, and had served in the Zulu War of 1879. He had been in the siege and defence of Etshowe.

This place was surrounded by the Zulus, and another British force tried to get into signalling communication with it by means of the heliograph, which at that time was quite a new invention.