I Could Not Help Admiring The Courage Of
The Lady, Though Regretting, At The Same Time, The Task She Had Set
Herself.
To inquiries of "How is the road?" I replied, "Very good,"
May the lie be forgiven me!
It was told for a humane purpose.
Save a large herd of gazelle on the far horizon, nothing occurred to
break the monotony of the journey through deep heavy sand till about 4
p.m., when a thin thread of dark blue, cutting the yellow desert and
lighter sky-line, appeared before us. It was the Persian Gulf. An hour
later, and Sheif, the landing-place for Bushire, was reached.
A trim steam-launch, with Union Jack floating over her stern, awaited
us. She was sent by Colonel Ross, British Resident at Bushire, who
kindly invited me to the Residence during my stay in the Persian port.
I was not sorry, after the hot, dusty ride, to throw myself at length
on the soft, luxurious cushion, and, after an excellent luncheon, to
peruse the latest English papers. Skimming swiftly through the bright
blue waters, we neared the white city, not sorry to have successfully
accomplished the voyage so far, yet aware that the hardest part of the
journey to India was yet to come.
At a distance, and seen from the harbour, Bushire is not unlike Cadiz.
Its Moorish buildings, the whiteness of its houses and blueness of
the sea, give it, on a fine day, a picturesque and taking appearance,
speedily dissipated, how ever, on closer acquaintance; for Bushire is
indescribably filthy. The streets are mere alleys seven or eight feet
broad, knee-deep in dust or mud, and as irregular and puzzling to a
stranger as the maze at Hampton Court.
The Persian port is cool and pleasant enough in winter-time, but in
summer the stench from open drains and cesspools becomes unbearable,
and Europeans (of whom there are thirty or forty) remove _en masse_ to
Sabsabad, a country place eight or ten miles off. The natives, in
the mean time, live as best they can, and epidemics of cholera and
diphtheria are of yearly occurrence. The water of Bushire producing
guinea-worms (an animal that, unless rolled out of the skin with great
care, breaks, rots, and forms a festering sore), supplies of it are
brought in barrels from Bussorah or Mahommerah; but this is not within
reach of the poorer class. Nearly every third person met in the street
suffers from ophthalmia in some shape or other - the effect of the dust
and glare, for there is no shade in or about the city.
The latter is built at the end of a peninsula ten miles in length and
three in breadth, the portion furthest away from the town being swampy
and overflowed by the sea. Most of the houses are of soft crumbling
stone full of shells; some, of brick and plastered mud; but all are
whitewashed, which gives the place the spurious look of cleanliness
to which I have referred.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 75 of 117
Words from 38269 to 38774
of 60127
