XX] LONDON: VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE 335 



Thackeray's 'First Day in the East' is admirable. Read 

 it again, and you will understand just how I think and 

 feel. 



" Next morning at seven we started for Suez in small four- 

 horsed two-wheeled omnibuses, carrying six passengers each. 

 Horses were changed every five miles, and we had a meal 

 every three hours at very comfortable stations. The desert 

 is undulating, mostly covered with a coarse, volcanic-looking 

 gravel. The road is excellent. The skeletons of camels — 

 hundreds of them — lay all along the road ; vultures, sand- 

 grouse, and sand-larks were occasionally seen. We frequently 

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

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

 palace. The Indian and Australian mails, about six hundred 

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

 luggage, 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 comfort- 

 able 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 Waghorn, and which was superseded a few years later by 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 pic- 

 turesque mountain, its spice-trees, and its waterfall, and on 



