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 unnecessary 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