254 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
Dalhousie, and the Hon. Mr. Bridgeman, son of Lord Bridport; 
the Assistant-Surgeon of the “ Sidon ” (Russell) ; Mr. Chalmers, a 
Scotchman, and nephew of Capt. Henderson, who is on board the 
* Sidon" as an invalid, and another young gentleman. We went 
to the British hotel, kept by a Scotchman, to which Captain 
Henderson recommended us; but it is a wretched house as far 
as meals and attendance are concerned. The greater part of us 
took two-bedded rooms. As to the houses here, they are more 
like holes in quarries than anything else,—great white-washed 
crumbling stone edifices, smelling of mortar and plaster, when 
the sun is not strong enough to raise any worse odour. We 
were very tired, but, after supper, were tempted with pipes, 
and Syrian tobacco, with which we lounged on long divans, and 
looked very Oriental. Mosquitoes there were in plenty, and as 
they got inside our curtained beds, we had no choice but to smoke 
them out before lying down. 
The first thing we did this morning was to visit the Turkish 
bath, a novelty to us, and greatly needed after our uncomfortable 
night’s accommodation on board the little steamer. The morning 
-was cold, only 68°, and we preferred walking to riding on 
jackasses, the universal mode of conveyance here. All the roads 
we travelled were suburban, and broad, with huge tumble-down 
houses on one side, and arow of Acacia Lebekh trees on the 
opposite, or odious narrow lanes of smaller buildings, rudely 
plastered and white-washed, with windows and balconies so pro- 
jecting as almost to meet overhead. Pray look in Lane's edition 
of the Arabian Nights for admirable sketches of them; but 
imagine also the roads unpaved and dusty, the walls very dirty 
and dilapidated, and the wood-work of the pretty lattices unpainted, 
brown, and ricketty, like an old cane-bottomed chair. The charms 
of these Eastern houses are all ideal and in the abstract: to live 
in them must be detestable. Even at this early hour, all the shops 
are open, if by that name you may designate little holes in the 
sides of the streets, where the faithful squat in their slippers, and 
smoke, pray, and drink coffee all the day long, each with a sallow — — 
or black attendant, who plays shop-boy, cheat, and pipe-feeder to 
