Always Upon Deck In The Midst Of A Dense Crowd Of People, With A Heat Which At Noon Time Rose To 99 Degrees 5' Fah., Even Under The Shade Of A Tent.

I was only once able to change my linen and dress at Buschir, which was the more annoying as one could not prevent the accumulation of vermin.

I longed for a refreshing and purifying bath.

Bassora, one of the largest towns of Mesopotamia, has among its inhabitants only a single European. I had a letter to the English agent, an Armenian named Barseige, whose hospitality I was compelled to claim, as there was no hotel. Captain Lichfield presented my letter to him and made known my request, but the polite man refused to grant it. The good captain offered me accommodation on board his ship, so that I was provided for for the present.

The landing of the Persian women presented a most laughable spectacle: if they had been beauties of the highest order, or princesses from the sultan's harem, there could not have been more care taken to conceal them from the possibility of being seen by men.

I was indebted to my sex for the few glimpses which I caught of them in the cabin; but among the whole eighteen women I did not see a single good-looking one. Their husbands placed themselves in two rows from the cabin to the ship's ladder, holding large cloths stretched before them, and forming in this way a kind of opaque moveable wall on both sides.

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