4 RIFLE AND SPEAR WITH THE RAJPOOTS. 



Church yesterday was suffocating, the temperature of the 

 sea itself being 95° F. I think no one regretted, as they 

 perhaps should, the absence of a clergyman, and that the 

 captain therefore read us the abbreviated service. He took 

 it at a hard canter. In the evening I attended the second 

 saloon service, where an Irish missionary preached an 

 excellent extempore sermon. Afterwards Lady M. A. and 

 I found a draughty corner on the spar-deck, and really 

 seemed to get a little air, till the Rome, homeward bound, 

 passed us, when a rush was made to our retreat and all hope 

 of further coolness and peace fled. A banjo has been added 

 to mil' miseries ! People who sing and play in the Red 

 Sea should have a padded chamber kept for them ! I am 

 not sure that capital punishment would be too severe for 

 some of the offenders. 



It was too late to see anything when we arrived at Aden, 

 but by six o'clock on Tuesday morning every one was on 

 deck, for the heat was awful, all port holes being closed 

 • owing to the native boys who were swimming and diving on 

 all sides, and to whom " mine " and " thine " are synonymous 

 terms. The deck was crowded with varied specimens of 

 Easterns : Arab, Somali, and Parsee, who brought ostrich 

 feathers, African skins and horns, and a dozen other com- 

 modities, and gave one little peace until they sold them. 

 Close to us, standing out of the water, were the masts of a 

 French steamer which had been run into and sunk there. 



