358 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



an army may depend ; or, as once happened, there 

 may be pulled forth from their dusty recesses a pair 

 of French pumps, for the diplomatic feet of some 

 dandy attache. 1 This pair of French pumps, that had 

 probably caused an amount of woe to man and beast 

 beyond all telling, had happened to be the only 

 packet to be taken eastwards, there being no de- 

 spatches lying or ready at the Embassy at Constanti- 

 nople when the time came round for the -Tatar to 

 start for Baghdad. 



About five o'clock, while your enemy the sun is 

 engaged slanting his beams down the river, making 

 its waters look one mass of molten gold, you prepare 

 for a stroll through the crowded bazaars. There you 

 will be jostled more than to your heart's content by 

 every variety of picturesque Oriental costume. Alban- 

 ians in richly embroidered jackets and loose baggy 

 trousers, and girded round the waist by a sash brist- 

 ling with silver - mounted pistols and murderous- 

 looking "yatagans." Wild Arabs straight from the 

 desert, stalking along in their black and white 

 striped " abbas," and with gay coloured handker- 

 chiefs fastened over the brows with a rope spun 

 from their own camel's hair. Veiled women shuf- 

 fling about awkwardly on their high-heeled yellow 

 slippers. Grave, solemn Turks seated on donkeys, 



1 Written when British troops were occupying Persian terri- 

 tory, and at the time when Her Majesty's Ministers at the 

 Court of Persia and suite were resident at Baghdad. 



