74 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Boorasjoon. In course of time it came to the Shah's 

 ears that the man was reputed wealthy. He was at 

 once proclaimed a traitor, as having sold the town to 

 the English. This was merely an excuse, that the 

 poor man's goods might be confiscated, and the Shah 

 possess himself of them. 



3d. We started at midnight, and, leaving the 

 village, we passed through some large date-groves in 

 pitchy darkness. A howling of dogs on the right 

 told us we were passing the village of Kooshab, 

 where the rout of the Persian army by the British 

 forces had taken place. The first streaks of dawn 

 showed us we were riding over a plain level as the 

 ocean, on which neither tree nor shrub was visible 

 for miles. At a distance of twenty -two miles we 

 reached the small enclosure of Chagudduk. Here 

 we rested the horses for half an hour, and made a 

 light breakfast. We had still a ride of sixteen miles 

 before us, across the salt marsh that lay between us 

 and Bushire. The sun was high in the heavens ere 

 we were in the saddle again. Leaving orders Avith 

 the servants to follow with the mules, we made up 

 our minds for a sweltering ride, and spurred away 

 for Bushire. The heat was terrific, and the glare 

 from the blistered, salt-encrusted soil so fierce and 

 blinding, that we were obliged to drop the ends of 

 our turbans over our faces, as a sort of veil The 

 marsh, without a single vestige of verdxtre, spread 

 away like a glistening sea to the right and to the 



