The quay, between the obelisks, was alive with a maddening concourse of people: sailors and merchants, vendors of fruit and water and vegetables, chattering women, screaming children, Ethiopian beggars, Greek students, priests of Serapis and Isis, Roman soldiers; and all pointed at the ship and streamed in unison to gaze at her in wide-eyed and open-mouthed admiration. For, though numbers of vessels entered the Great Harbour of Alexandria daily, it was not every day that the quay was visited by so impressive a quadrireme as this; and the beautiful ship aroused curiosity.
The three travellers stood on the prow, beside the silver figure of Aphrodite, and Catullus said, in an appreciative tone:
"It's not half bad. Just look at that row of palaces! It is as though Alexandria were one great palace, opening on its harbour! And what people, white, dark and black, all mixed! And what a noise they make, what a noise! We are much calmer in Italy!... Do look, Lucius, at all those ibises walking about on the quay, quiet and tame, pecking here and there, upon my word as though they were at home! Do you see the ibises, Thrasyllus? I thought that they just stood and dreamed on one leg, beside the Nile, like poetic birds ... and, the moment I arrive, I see great flocks of them actually walking on the quay of Alexandria's harbour! White ibises, black ibises, piebald ibises! What a crowd of ibises! What a crowd of them! And so dignified, much more dignified than the people! Ye gods, what a noisy crew the Alexandrians are!"
The gangway was slung from the ship to the quay; and the master was receiving the port-authorities, to whom he had to show his papers, when two men came hurrying across the gangway, which was hedged in by a guard of sailors to protect it against any intrusion of the gaping populace. One of them was an obvious Latin, the other a dark-skinned Sabæan.
"Well, Vettius!" said Lucius, welcoming the Latin, who was his steward. "I am glad to see you again and I hope that your voyage was as prosperous as ours!"
Vettius the steward bowed low before his young master, bowed ceremoniously before fat Uncle Catullus. He had travelled ahead of his master to seek suitable lodgings at Alexandria and he seemed very well pleased with what he had found, for he pointed joyfully to the dark-skinned Sabæan, who had kept behind and now bobbed down with many salaams and respectful assurances, uttered in a language that fluctuated between Latin, Greek, Phoenician and Arabic.