53

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 427

my visit to some account in combatting American prejudice against the
darker colored races of mankind, and at the same time to raise colored people
somewhat in their own estimation and thus stimulate them to higher endeav-
ors. I had a theory, for which I wanted the support of facts in the range of my
own knowledge,– but more of this in another place.

The voyage from Naples to Port Said, on a good steamer, is accom-
plished in four days, and in fine weather it is a very delightful one. In our
case, air, sea and sky assumed their most amiable behavior, and early dawn
found us face to face with old Stromboli– whose cone shaped summit seems
to rise almost perpendicularly from the sea. We passed through the straits of
Messina, left behind us the smoke and vapor of Mt. Etna, and in three days,
were safely anchored in front of Port Said– the west end of the Suez
Canal– that stupendous work which has brought the occident face to face
with the orient and changed the route taken by the commerce of the world;
which has brought Australia within forty days of England, and saved the men
who go down to the sea in ships much of the time and danger once their lot
in finding their way to the east around the Cape of Good Hope.

At Port Said, where we entered the Suez Canal, the vessels of all nations
halt. The few houses that make up the town look white, new and temporary,
reminding one of some of the hastily built wooden towns of the American
frontier, where there is much space outside and little within. Here our good
ship, the "Ormuz," the largest vessel that had then ever floated through the
Suez Canal, stopped to take in a large supply of coal, prior to proceeding on
her long voyage to Australia. Great barges loaded with this fuel stored there
from England for the purpose of coaling her eastern bound vessels, were
brought alongside of our steamer and their contents soon put on board by a
small army of Arabs. It was something to see these men of the desert at work.
As I looked at them and listened to their fun and frolic while bearing their
heavy burdens, I said to myself, "You fellows are, at least in your disposition, half brothers to the negro." The negro works best and hardest when it
is no longer work, but becomes play with joyous singing. These children of
the desert performed their task in like manner, amid shouts of laughter and
tncks of fun, as if their hard work were the veriest sport. In color these Arabs
are something between two riding saddles, the one old and the other new.
They arc a little lighter than the one and a little darker than the other. I did
not see a single fat man among them. They were erect and strong, lean and
sinewy. Their strength and fleetness were truly remarkable. They tossed the
heavy bags of coal on their shoulders, and trotted on board our ship with
them for hours without halt or weariness. Lank in body, slender in limb, full