A Colonial Tramp Author:Hume Nisbet Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 25 CHAPTER III TO KANTARA, IN SUEZ CANAL At Sea—Death of Seedy-boy—Port Said—Coaling—Arabs —Suez Canal—Mirage—Night Effect. Feb. 8th.—At sea one of t... more »he Seedy-boys (African stokers) died to-day about dawn, and was buried at sunset; his disease a most curious one, which we don't find, any more than we find elephantiasis, amongst Europeans. This the sailors call ' cussedness,' and the Africans, ' dibble dibble.' The boy simply became tired of his life, and seemingly had the rare faculty of being able to resign it when and where he pleased. He chose to die at daybreak, and his companions buried him, according to their own sacred rites, secretly, as the sun was sinking below the distant horizon. A few of the passengers knew what was going on ; but we were requested to keep back, and not to look, as they do not like unbelievers to see their ceremonies. So we left them alone. Feb. Wth.—Beached Port Said about seven A.m., and had a good view of the breakwater, lighthouse, and entrance of the Canal; also saw the black fins of a couple of sharks in the harbour, with the buildings, half-French, half-Oriental, and the crowd ashore—Arabs, Egyptians, Greeks, French, Italians, and other races, all mixing, with their many- tinted robes, blue, white, and red predominating; the rich tints on the house-walls, bazaars and fruit-stands;the dhows and smaller boats cramming up the docks and landing-places ; the coal-barges being rowed across from the other side of the harbour, commanded by an Arab chief, and filled with demoniac, black figures, with cowl-like headpieces of sacking, chaunting a song as they all pulled together, with the chief standing upright in their centre, gloomy and stern. q r .;. The ' Parramatta' has hardly anchored when the. docks- are clustering with picturesque...« less