230 THE VOYAGE TO INDIA 
things had gone on to the Palace on arriving and went on 
with Lord Dalhousie).' 
All's well that ends well, however ; thanks to Lady Dal- 
housie, who also had a baggage dromedary, and the members 
of the Suite, who bullied the Transit officers into providing an 
extra two-wheeled car, the baggage was safely taken. ' I never 
was so glad in all my life,' he exclaims, ' as v/hen I got my things 
all stowed away, though at the expense of relinquishing my 
scanty collection, and all but a few sheets of small-sized paper, 
for the Desert and Aden/ 
Night had fallen, for it was 8 o'clock, and ' our departure 
by cresset and torch light was very pretty, surrounded as we 
were by Orientals in all costumes.' As for the vehicles, the 
Dalhousies ' mounted a beautiful barouche, as good as ever 
the Park saw, with six Arab horses and two outriders, and 
dashed off at full speed, the cressets and torches scampering 
on before, through the narrow streets, whipping everybody 
and everything in the way.' The four-horse vans in which 
the rest foUowed were exactly like short omnibuses, to hold 
four each, but had only two wheels with broad tires ; ' a cad 
stands on the step behind ; an Egyptian drives at a furious 
gallop, with a red fez and long whip.' In the first were Dr. 
Bell, an old Indian, bundled up in all imaginable clothes, 
European and Oriental, to keep off the cold, and Hooker, with 
a plaid for the night, and slung round his neck his two precious 
barometers to save them from the breakage declared to be 
inevitable in the terrible jolting of the Overland route. The 
road was worst at the beginning ; in many places it became 
really good, where the flats of pebbles were broad and long ; 
but the Arab tribes who were heavily bribed to keep it in some 
sort of order, cared little for the Pasha. So long as they were 
paid, they removed the large stones from the track ; as soon 
as the money stopped, they would replace all the big pieces, 
and so render the track impassable. 
The smooth-seeming, uninterrupted slope of eight miles 
from the highest level down to the Red Sea was indeed a 
howHng wilderness, and the Desert of Sinai opposite looked no 
better. Amid the pebbles and rounded lumps of rock as big 
