Repository: UIHistories Project: UI Library School Alumni Newsletter - 16 [PAGE 5]

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I were under cover all of the time! This is their cold season, of course, and fc unusually dry and somewhat dusty, but aside from that, we have been most •jfortable all of the time. For the next four days, we shall be going south t Pladras^ Madura and Ceylon, and it will be very warm, I suppose. Every M says Ceylon is lovely, and I am looking forward to the few days I shall *nd there. I spent Christmas at Angkor-Vat, a spot about as removed from the idea • Christmas as could be imagined, but we had a wonderful four days there cl.mbing about among the ruins. New Year's day we were back at Penang, w liting for our boat to Calcutta. I never imagined the stone carving and sculpture we should see here. The Taj Mahal is only one of many beautiful marble structures. This morning we ^ent over to an island (Elephanta) to visit some wonderful temples in caves, again found remains of magnificent carvings, over 1200 years old. I reach Egypt (Suez and Cairo) on Feb. 22, and expect to take a 16-day Bur in Egypt and Palestine, between two Dollar ships. I shall get my tickets, btc, from Cook's and will have almost no responsibility for details myself. £)n March 9 I sail for Naples on the Van Buren, and after that my plans are entirely fixed. Red Sea February 18 Last night we passed Aden on the southern tip of Arabia, went through Pie Straits of Babel-Mandeb, and are now in the Red Sea steaming up the joast in sight of the islands off of the Egyptian or Abyssinian coast. The Red is much choppier than the Arabian Sea was, and the ship is rolling conpderably this morning. I leave the ship next Monday morning at Suez and shall spend the sixteen ays between the two Dollar ships in Egypt and Palestine; if my plans as made how are carried out. The trip in Ceylon was delightful but too short, as the Monroe changed ber schedule and sailed two days sooner than had been advertised. That gave pie only three days in Ceylon and it was far too short a time to see much. I left my party at Kandy in the mountains, and went alone by train to Colombo where I spent a day and a half and then came aboard. I am very comfortable; have a nice cabin for two with no roommate, the food is good (it seems like heaven to have lettuce, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, hot cakes and decent coffee once more!) and the people are very friendly. t India was marvellous and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but travel there is not easy and my impressions are confusing and contradictory. I don't think that I care to go back. China and Japan, particularly Pekin, I feel quite differently about. The weather has been wonderful almost all of the time, but it was the dry season and the dust was terrible. I think I have swallowed or inhaled not pecks but bushels of dirt this winter. It seems so strange to have had no winter, at all, and I simply can't realize that spring is already on the way. We were warned that the Red Sea would probably be hot, but the breeze is so fresh this morning that I had to put on a jacket and finally came inside to write. After the early part of April, until about May 1, I shall be in Rome, Itah. c/o American Express Co., and from May 1 until about June 1, c/o American Express Co., Florence, Italy. . March 11 At sea, somewhere in the Mediterranean. I have been "on the jump" almost literally since we landed at Suez considerably over two weeks ago, as I tried to "do" Egypt, Palestine and Spain. in sixteen days! It can't be done, is my verdict, though I made a fairh good attempt. As I have probably written I \*as "personally conduced" (literally) by Cook's office. 1 had no traveling companions except my drayman and drive 15]