4 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



spread, a general feeling of disappointment prevailed 

 throughout the little camp. In a few hours the piles 

 of commissariat stores, the mountain-train, the light 

 field-guns, the animals of the land-transport, were be- 

 ing hurried down for re-embarkation to the river 

 the frigates and transports lying off, ready to receive 

 them, a few yards from the banks. More than one 

 young subaltern, who had pictured himself arrayed 

 in gorgeous silks of Persia's loom, the result of a 

 successful loot, or who had indulged in a vision 

 of rapid promotion, possibly of a brevet, now sadly 

 turned his thoughts to the routine life of an Indian 

 cantonment, perhaps less sadly to a favourite pony 

 which he had been obliged to leave behind, his only 

 regret when his regiment was ordered off, at a few 

 hours' notice, on active service. He little thought 

 that in the course of a few short Aveeks that routine 

 life of cantonments would be a thing of the past at 

 least for many months to come that before two 

 short months were over the north of India would be 

 in a blaze of insurrection, that he might be one of 

 those called upon to stem its tide, and that the work 

 in store for him would be far heavier, far more har- 

 assing, than anything he had seen in Persia, or that 

 he would have been likely to see had the Avar con- 

 tinued. A Aveek after the arrival of the despatch 

 saw the frigates, each with its tAvo or three transports 

 in toAv, steaming doAvn the Shut -el -Arab, bearing 

 their living freights, some to Bushire, some direct to 



