8 FELL O W-PASSENGERS.

when tired, we let him ride on some of the baggage. He would

often run on ahead of us, and rest under the shade of some

tree ; and then, after we had passed him some distance, he

would catch us up again. Once or twice we feared we had lost

him. He was very fond of chasing gazelles, — which it is un-

necessary to add he never caught, — and he sometimes went so

far after them that we lost him for hours. Several times he

reached the camp long after the last of the caravan had arrived :

he had, no doubt, found and followed the scent of the camels.

Among the Agra's " passengers, we had two officers of the

Blues." They had come out to Egypt hoping to be able to make an expedition into the interior, from either Berbera or

Tajourah, ports opposite Aden, but had been obliged to give it

up, and had decided on landing at Souakim.

There were also three or four saloon-passengers, bound for

India, who had come out in the " Agra " from England, and

were not at all delighted, after their long delay in the canal, at

the prospect of a further delay through going to Souakim, as it

would cause them to be two days longer on their voyage to

Kurrachee, to which port they were bound. We found eight or ten Persian pilgrims, deck-passengers, far

more interesting than the Anglo-Indians. They were dressed

in parti-coloured robes resembling dressing-gowns, and wore

the high felt Persian hat, and, though extremely dirty, were

decidedly picturesque.

These unfortunate men had set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca

from Bushire, at the head of the Persian Gulf ; and some of

them had saved up their money for years with this object in

view.

After about a month's voyage, they had arrived at Jeddah,

the port for Mecca, only to find that they might not land there.

There was, at the time of their arrival at Jeddah, cholera in the