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We also passed some other amazing-looking craft which were being towed down the Red Sea. They looked like armored houseboats, and were for use up the Tigris. I should not like to have been boxed up in one, for it looked as if they would have to use a can-opener to get you out, and it did not appear to me as though the sides were bullet-proof. But trust the Admiralty to know what they are doing!
But we then took a steam launch and proceeded some miles farther in order to visit the ruins of the old palace and the elephants' kraal. Skirting in and out, we saw about three miles of houseboats on sampans. This was a most interesting spectacle, all kinds of traffic being carried on, some space aboard being reserved for the family.
Some years later, they moved to Upper Weyanoke where Mr. Douthat died. In the family circle as we found it were Mrs. Douthat, three daughters, and two sons. While the conversation ranged wide, from seventeenth century plantation grants to twentieth century houseboats, we found our attention drawn most to the reminiscences of Mrs.
And, over and above all this, is the fact that miserably pitching and rolling about in grim battle with the elements is not houseboating. It is easy then to see that snug harbours count for much when cruising in the true spirit of houseboating, and in the charming, awkward tubs that make the best and the most lovable of houseboats.
Therefore I will close my eyes to all other memories, and endeavour to see only that little white and green houseboat by the ferry, which was the scene of our future collaborations. Houseboats then were not built to the scale of Mississippi steamers, but this boat was a small one, even for that primitive age. The man from whom we hired it described it as "compact."
The houseboats are open at both ends and you will see many things that the guidebooks fail to mention. The Oriental Hotel, the banks, the shipping offices, the business houses, and all the legations save only the American, are clustered on or near the river in a low-lying and unattractive quarter of the town.
He looked over vast reaches, and hardly recognized other houseboats, tucked in holes along the banks, as craft like his own. The clusters of houses on points of low ridges did net strike him as veritable villages, but places akin to those of fairyland. All the rest of the day he dropped on down, not knowing which side he should land against, and filled with doubts as to where his duty lay.
Best of all now, in her great emergency, she knew shanty-boats, and as she gazed at the eddy and saw the fleet of houseboats there her heart leaped exultantly. No less than a score of boats were landed along the eddy bank, and instantly her eyes fell upon first one and then another that would serve her purpose. She walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed from the bank: "U-whoo!"
For a time the whole tendency of mankind was to desert the river valleys in which the race had been cradled for half a million years, but now that the War against Flies has been waged so successfully that this pestilential branch of life is nearly extinct, they are returning thither with a renewed appetite for gardens laced by watercourses, for pleasant living amidst islands and houseboats and bridges, and for nocturnal lanterns reflected by the sea.
Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things up, declaring that men folks didn't know how to keep their own faces clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged to escape. When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up like a honey-comb.
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