Pillow Fight

NORDDEUTSCHER LLYOD BREMEN

DAMPFER LUTZONE

Sallie dearest:

This is our tenth day at sea and the time has simply flown.  I haven’t done half the things I wanted to and can’t believe we are so near Port Said.  Two days more.  Tomorrow we hope to reach Suez.  I have for a long time labored under the impression that people didn’t make a bit of difference to my state of mind, but I believe I’m only human after all, for this trip has seemed shorter  than I ever thought any on the water could be, and I think it is all due to having such nice people as the Gillis’s to do things with and talk to or not have to talk to if I don’t feel like it.

I do hope sometime you can know them, for Mrs. G. is a dear and such fun.  She reminds me so often of you: the funny little things she does and says – and she’s as pretty as a picture.  Adelaide and I have been going to gym every morning for an hour before breakfast, then take our bath and dress and have breakfast and feel fine the rest of the day, till five o’clock when we have another hour of strenuous horse back, camel riding, weight lifting, etc. before dinner.

A very energetic Dutchman has made up an elaborate scheme for daily sports – had a programme printed and from 10:30 to 11:30 and 4:30 to 5:30 we indulge in sack races, pillow fights, swimming, stunts, etc.

Feb. 11 – Last night we had a fancy dress ball.  Father made a wonderful Maharajah in full dress donated by Dorothy – a beautiful gold and scarlet silk and elaborate turban decorated with diamond pins and strings of pearls collected from Mrs. Gillis and some other people.  Adelaide and Dorothy were his Hindu and Mohammedan wives in beautiful costumes they got in India.  Mrs. Chandler was a sight as Topsey.  I braided her hair in dozens of pigtails and blacked her face, and she wore awful looking clothes.

I went as a nun – wore a long, black satin coat of Mrs. G’s backwards.  It had a wide collar effect over the shoulders so was just the thing, borrowed a black veil and used white linen handkerchiefs around my forehead and chin, and had a great long string of big, black beads.  Headed by the band, we all walked twice around the deck – I at the last and all alone as modestly as possible.  It was loads of fun and I took the prize, a lovely carved tortoise shell jewel box.  I vowed I wasn’t going to dance, as it wasn’t fitting with my costume, but when an awfully good looking American who was dressed as a monk asked me I couldn’t resist, and found we had the floor to ourselves.  Everyone had stopped to watch the novel sight.

Tonight the prizes were awarded for the sports.  I got a lovely piece of Canton linen, a bureau cover, for driving a blindfolded man around a lot of bottles.

It was a year ago on the eighth that I [met] Lover.  All this week we were in Baguio, and I [have] simply been living it all over again.  It’s funny to read my diary and know how indifferent I was about it all.  You remember when Lover was with us from Shanghai to Hongkong on the “Yorck”?  Well this is a sister ship and exactly like her in every way.  We even have the same stateroom, and every time I walk the deck I think of how we used to [] together and at every turn I expect to see him.  It makes me so homesick for him I don’t know what to do.  So many things come back to me, and I realize more than ever what good times we had together.

We are in the canal now – passed a Japanese steamer this morning and on board was a Japanese girl I went to school with at Miss Romey’s.  We were close enough to call to each other.  She is going to Cairo too, so will see her there.  Wasn’t that an unusual thing to have happen?

Your last letter came just before we left Columbo.  It is a dear.  I’m so glad Mary is all right and you had such a happy Christmas.  Lover sent me a list of our Canton china which had just arrived and includes everything you ever heard of, two big boxes which he won’t open till we do it together.

This is a picture I’ve meant to send before, taken in our car in India.

It is wonderful tonight, full moonlight and the desert is glorious – quite cold too, so cold that we’ve all appeared in coats and dark clothes.  Hope to reach Port Said tomorrow, leave by train at one and arrive Cairo at five.

Goodnight, Sallie dear, I love you

Alice