Hot Weather. 297 



the surface of the ground often becomes so hot that it would 

 be painful to place the palm of the hand or sole of the foot on 

 it, and consequently it causes the air which blows over it to 

 assume more or less the character of a blast from a furnace. 

 On this account, the highest range of the thermometer on 

 board steamers going through the Red Sea, is about 20 F. 

 more than on the Cape boats when crossing the equator. 

 Owing to the land-locked nature of the Persian Gulf, the 

 heat there is exceptionally great, even reaching at times, 

 I have heard from reliable authorities, to 120 F. in the 

 shade. In the Scinde desert I have endured, in the shade, 

 a heat of 125 F. As a good example of the radiating 

 power of arid ground, I may mention that I have known 

 the thermometer, at nine o'clock at night, to register 

 109 F. at Meean Meer in the Punjab. At that tempera- 

 ture, the sheets and pillow of one's bed had become so 

 hot that one could not lie down on them without having had 

 them first sprinkled with water. Unless the wind is 'dead 

 aft' and blowing at the same rate as the steamer is pro- 

 ceeding, there will be a certain amount of cooling wind 

 made by the ship. During the three voyages I made 

 round the Cape in sailing vessels, we had some very 

 hot weather when becalmed in the 'doldrums,' which is 

 the belt of ocean that extends 10 or 12 degrees north and 

 south of the equator, and, as a rule, is untroubled by the 

 trade winds. If Cape Town was a pleasant place to live in, it 

 would soon become a favourite resort for tourists, who would 

 be naturally attracted by the delightful sea voyage to and 

 from it. 



As soon as we arrived in London, we began to put in 

 order, amplify and correct the materials which my wife had 

 collected for a long-threatened book on ladies' riding. Ever 

 anxious to learn something new about horses we went one 

 afternoon to the Crystal Palace to see a " Professor " Norton 

 Smith who had come over from Canada to show, so the ad- 

 vertisements said, a marvellous system of horse taming. I 



