On to Africa!

After visiting the Vernes in Amiens, Nellie went by train from Calais, in northeast France, to Brindisi, at the southern tip of Italy, in three and a half days – skipping Paris, Florence and Rome altogether. The eyes of the modern traveler widen in disbelief at such an itinerary. No Eiffel Tower? No Michelangelo statues? No three-star restaurants?  But Nellie was out to break a speed record, not tour the continent, and every hour mattered. Nowadays, a traveler between Calais and Brindisi would grumble that a commercial airliner must make two stops and cover the distance in an “interminable” nine hours. Nor would another train set off in a few hours; if Nellie missed a connection, even in Europe, it would most often cost her two days. And so the European part of her trip was three nights of train travel — right after crossing the Channel.

Nellie was excited to see the Suez Canal on Nov. 28, 1889, but it turned out to be a major disappointment: “an enormous ditch, enclosed on either side with high sand banks.” The weather was beastly hot with mosquitos everywhere. Although the canal was only 100 miles long, Nellie was not surprised to hear, given the conditions, that it took ten years to build and that 100,000 laborers died in construction. The company aboard ship was not much better than the weather. Nellie found her fellow travelers, mostly English, “not the jolliest lot in the world.”

Still, she appreciated the significance of the place – at least up to a point. When the passengers looked upon the spot where the Israelites supposedly crossed the Red Sea, Nellie offered a wry comment: “Some people who bother themselves greatly about facts, figures and ancient history, bought views, which showed that at certain stages of the tide, people, even in this day, can wade around there without any risk or discomfort.”