Saturday Thursday, March 26 28, 1929
Got the two packages off all right and the boat left at eleven. A gale of wind sprang up from the south and increased in velocity until we could not even eat on deck, as our soup and food would blow out of the dishes. All afternoon and evening we sailed down the coast between the shore and off-shore islands. Too windy to do much of anything. I was looking at my map of the world when it blew out of my hands and overboard. Our Indian friend told us about the places of interest to see in India and Kashmir. He has been living in Germany for several years now and is very intelligent. Speaks English well, using many long or difficult words; also German, French, Persian, Russian, a little Austrian, and possibly Italian, Arabic, Spanish, all besides his own native tongue.
After dinner some of Mort’s favorites dropped around, one my cook friend and the other a boy with a musical voice that you never tire of hearing. He taught them some English to say in Karachi and Shanghai. A couple of my friends, those who wanted to treat me to the beer, bought a roll of films and I took it all of them. Such comical poses. They always wanted their new pith helmets in the picture, and the poses were comical—holding black native boys in their arms, etc.
Last night they had movies for the soldiers, so Mort and I went. The screen was lashed to the mast and the audience sat on the second deck. East Lynne was the picture. Ancient and pretty good in the films. Old costumes and all in Italian, which was not hard to understand, more or less. There was a wind storm instead of the snow storm and, strange to say, sometimes you could see the storm through a window or from outside; then other times, supposedly at this same time of the storm, it was nice and calm outside. The director just forgot his cues. One scene shows the heroine and a tree being blown from a cliff to a tall, rocky pinnacle some feet away. The hero somehow, probably by magic, gets to the tree and rescues the girl. The villain confesses, exonerating the hero, and all ends well when the whole cast opportunely happens to drop in the closing scene.