A TRIP TO EGYPT
The microbe of globetrotting having entered us, my husband took a month’s
leave and at the end of September we started on a trip to the East.
I was so pleased I could kiss the whole world! We travelled by train
to Sebastopol, where an omnibus, drawn by six horses, stood ready for
us. There were so many passengers that I hadn’t much room for my legs
and felt pins and needles in them, and a horrible disjointed feeling,
as though my limbs didn’t belong to me. The road leading to Yalta was
beautiful but very wild, composed of zigzags and terrifying angles; high
cliffs towered on each side of the road. Half way on we drew up at a post
house where we had dinner, and arrived at Yalta towards night. We found
there my cousin Zoe Zaroudny, who was to travel with us to Constantinople.
The next day we took the “Oleg,” a Russian boat going straight
to the shores of the Bosphorus. Except ourselves there were only
three passengers on board: Mme. Lebedeff, an orientalised European,
wearing a scarlet fez, who was returning to Constantinople, and two
inhabitants of Alexandria, father and son, whom we took for Greeks, very
taciturn-looking both of them. Our crossing was not agreeable, the sea
being very rough. I was roused in the night by a terrible squall, which
subsided only towards morning.