The prospect of another novel experience was exceedingly gratifying to me and I began at once to look forward with interest to a renewal of my acquaintance with Rome and to the trip back to the East by the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean which, according to Kipling, “sits an’ smiles, so sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue.” So my feet no longer lagged in my preparations for a long trip with my three children and another extended residence in the tropics.