Their officers lived in the staterooms in the center of the ship, taking with them their families who had acquired a foreign aspect during their long residence in the colonies.
Ulysses saw ladies clad in white stretched out on their steamer chairs, having themselves fanned by their little Chinese pages; he saw bronzed and weather-beaten soldiers who appeared disgusted yet galvanized by the war that was snatching them from their Asiatic siesta, and children,--many children--delighted to go to France, the country of their dreams, forgetting in their happiness that their fathers were probably going to their death.
The passage could not have been smoother.

The Mediterranean was like a silver plain in the moonlight.

From the invisible coast came warm puffs of garden perfumes.

The groups on deck reminded one another, with selfish satisfaction, of the great dangers that threatened the people embarking in the North Sea, harassed by German submarines.

Fortunately the Mediterranean was free from such calamity.