336 MY LIFE 



saw the mirage, like distant trees and water. Near the 

 middle station the pasha has a hunting-lodge — a perfect pal- 

 ace. The Indian and Australian mails, about six hundred 

 boxes, as well as all the parcels, goods, and passengers' lug- 

 gage, were brought by endless trains of camels, which we 

 passed on the way. At the eating places I took a little stroll, 

 gathering some of the curious highly odoriferous plants that 

 grew here and there in the hollow, which I dried in my 

 pocket-books, and I also found a few land-shells. We enjoyed 

 the ride exceedingly, and reached Suez about midnight. It 

 is a miserable little town, and the bazaar is small, dark, and 

 dirty. There is said to be no water within ten miles. The 

 next afternoon we went on board our ship, a splendid vessel 

 with large and comfortable cabins, and everything very 

 superior to the Euxine. Adieu." 



I have given this description of my journey from Alex- 

 andria to Suez, over the route established by Lieutenant 

 Waghorn, and which was superseded a few years later by 

 the railway, and afterwards by the canal, because few persons 

 now living will remember it, or know that it ever existed. 

 Of the rest of our journey I have no record. We stayed a 

 day at desolate, volcanic Aden, and thence across to Galle, 

 with its groves of cocoa-nut palms, and crowds of natives 

 offering for sale the precious stones of the country; thence 

 across to Pulo Penang, with its picturesque mountain, its 

 spice-trees, and its waterfall, and on down the Straits of 

 Malacca, with its richly-wooded shores, to our destination, 

 Singapore, where I was to begin the eight years of wandering 

 throughout the Malay Archipelago, which constituted the cen- 

 tral and controlling incident of my life. 



