CHAPTER VII 



SYRIA 



Beyrout Fever Death of dragoman at Damascus Jaffa Descent 



of Jordan Home 



OUR company parted at Alexandria. Barclay- 

 returned home, I went to Syria, and Boulton 

 desired to go farther East, to study Arabic and 

 Oriental modes of thought and expression. Our 

 paths crossed only once in Syria. Owing to misad- 

 ventures, and to my great regret, I never saw him 

 after. He made his way to the British forces, then 

 engaged in the siege of Mooltan, and was the guest 

 of their commander, General Whish. He stationed 

 himself, against advice, in a loopholed tower to 

 witness the progress of the fight, a matchlock ball 

 penetrated his eye and killed him on the spot. I 

 heard the story many years afterwards from General 

 Whish himself. 



I sailed from Alexandria to Beyrout with my 

 dragoman Ali and my two pet monkeys. We were 

 then put into quarantine, where Ali found a party of 

 negress girls who had been captured on the borders 

 of Abyssinia during the very fighting for which my 

 acquaintance in the caravan was bound. They had 

 been taken to Beyrout via the Red Sea. The girls 

 were delighted to talk to us of places known to them 



