'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎293] (334/360)

FROM BUSREH TO TEHRAN AGAIN
2)
built Consulate. A gap in the hills gives a glimpse of
more mountains, and there is nowhere a tree or a blade
of grass to be seen.
In spite of this, Muscat exports quantities of dates
from the interior, and as soon as the Assyria steamed
into the harbour and fired off her gun, which echoed
and reverberated from the cliffs again and again, a crowd
of lighters laden with boxes and bags of dates pushed
off from the shore, and we were surrounded by a scream
ing, wrangling swarm of bronzed Arabs.
When we left the calm waters of the harbour we found
ourselves in the swell of the monsoon outside, and had to
endure two days of tossing before we reached Karachi
again, where we found it, comparatively speaking, quite
cold after the intense heat we had experienced.
A couple of days later, and we were anchored in the
beautiful harbour of Bombay, and after a sad parting with
our faithful syce, Fakir Mahomet, we embarked on the
P. and O. Peninsular to Ismailia, intending to make our
way thence via Alexandria to Constantinople, and so back
a^ain to Tehran. However, we heard at Aden that
o '
cholera had broken out in Egypt, and being by no means
desirous of spending weeks in quarantine, we decided to
go on to Brindisi, reaching it on October ist. It seemed
hard to be so near home, and yet to be turning Eastward
Ho! again. However, so it was, and we traversed the
Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas, and I landed for
the second time at Enzeli. So much had happened since
I left England some two years before, full of the joy of
travel, that I could hardly realise that so short a time
had elapsed, feeling that at least a decade had passed over
my head.