3-047-067 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Voyage to China: forecastle of a mail-steamer in the Red Sea, 1872. 'Our Special Artist has furnished a sketch of the scene on the forecastle of a Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-ship going down the Red Sea, on a sultry night of August, when the dreadful heat made it impossible to sleep below. There is no part of the world, it is agreed by all travellers, where the climate is felt to be more oppressive than between Suez and Aden. Passengers homeward, who have dwelt half their lives in the plains of India, sometimes find the Red Sea too much for them. The atmosphere is so heated by the sun's rays in the daytime that it cannot become cool at night, while there is scarcely a breath of wind. Still, as the moon takes her turn during the nocturnal period, and she is milder and more merciful than the other luminary, the men who lie stretched on the forecastle, as shown in our Artist's sketch, may be happy enough to snatch a few hours of uneasy and feverish slumber. Greatly relieved they will be when they have passed the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb and the bare volcanic peaks of Aden, to enter on the broad expanse of the Indian Ocean'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.