as his book will be in our hands.

Crossing from Bombay, the author reached Muscat in eleven days. Here,
with his host, Reuben, he paid his respects to his highness the Imaum,
whose court is a curiosity.)

The Imaum's palace was close to the water's edge in front of the town,
and his highness received Reuben and myself in an arbour or veranda open
to the sea. At the entrance to the veranda stood several well dressed
Arabs armed with sword, spear, and dagger, and half a dozen dirty
looking Abyssinians clothed somewhat like the sepoys in our Indian army,
and equipped much after the same fashion. These latter, as I understood,
were paraded in honour of my visit; and indeed generally form the _garde
du corps_ on occasions of an Englishman's presentation at the _Court of
Muscat_. The Imaum rose on our entrance and accommodated us with chairs,
and after we had been served with some insipid sherbet, addressed
himself to me on the subject of my journey, its object and direction;
and then touched on the politics of Europe.

Our interview closed by his highness offering me the use of his horses,
his houses, and his ships of war, the cabins of which afforded excellent
accommodation, and which were generally occupied by English visiters.

The Imaum of Muscat is passionately fond of horses, and devotes
considerable time and attention to their breeding. Of some of the finest
horses in his stud, the Imaum makes presents to the governors of the
Indian presidencies, and deserving officers in his own service. Horses
likewise form an article of trade between Muscat and India, and yield,
as I have been told, a considerable profit.

(Intellect is not on the march at Bushire. It contains a small school
founded by the famous Joseph Wolff, and supported by the British
residents in Persia. Mr. Wolff projected much; but Mr. Stocqueler says:)

The school possessed, while I was at Bushire, no more than thirteen
pupils, who were struggling through the rudiments of the Persian and
Armenian languages, under the guidance of a sleepy old Armenian.

(At Koete, our author visited three brothers, "all dressed alike and so
much resembling each other in feature, and in the total loss of the left
eye, that it was difficult to discover my friend the supercargo, who had
accompanied us from Bombay."

Koete is about a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad. The houses
are built of mud and stone, and flat roofed with the trunk of the date
tree. Around