280 THE VOYAGE TO INDIA 



things had gone on to the Palace on arriving and went on 

 with Lord Dalhousie).' 



All's well that ends well, however ; thanks to Lady Dal- 

 housie, who also had a baggage dromedary, and the members 

 of the Suite, who bullied the Transit officers into providing an 

 extra two-wheeled car, the baggage was safely taken. ' I never 

 was so glad in all my life,' he exclaims, * as when I got my things 

 all stowed away, though at the expense of relinquishing my 

 scanty collection, and all but a few sheets of small-sized paper, 

 for the Desert and Aden.' 



Night had fallen, for it was 8 o'clock, and ' our departure 

 by cresset and torch light was very pretty, surrounded as we 

 were by Orientals in all costumes.' As for the vehicles, the 

 Dalhousies ' mounted a beautiful barouche, as good as ever 

 the Park saw, with six Arab horses and two outriders, and 

 dashed off at full speed, the cressets and torches scampering 

 on before, through the narrow streets, whipping everybody 

 and everything in the way.' The four-horse vans in which 

 the rest followed were exactly like short omnibuses, to hold 

 four each, but had only two wheels with broad tires ; ' a cad 

 stands on the step behind ; an Egyptian drives at a furious 

 gallop, with a red fez and long whip.' In the first were Dr. 

 Bell, an old Indian, bundled up in all imaginable clothes, 

 European and Oriental, to keep off the cold, and Hooker, with 

 a plaid for the night, and slung round his neck his two precious 

 barometers to save them from the breakage declared to be 

 inevitable in the terrible jolting of the Overland route. The 

 road was worst at the beginning ; in many places it became 

 really good, where the flats of pebbles were broad and long ; 

 but the Arab tribes who were heavily bribed to keep it in some 

 sort of order, cared little for the Pasha. So long as they were 

 paid, they removed the large stones from the track ; as soon 

 as the money stopped, they would replace all the big pieces, 

 and so render the track impassable. 



The smooth-seeming, uninterrupted slope of eight miles 

 from the highest level down to the Bed Sea was indeed a 

 howling wilderness, and the Desert of Sinai opposite looked no 

 better. Amid the pebbles and rounded lumps of rock as big 



