lowing
their footsteps through the beautiful _Belad-el-Andaluz_, which, to the
eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahman, was only less lovely than the plains of
Damascus.

While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
Gotha, and among the valleys of she Thueringian Forest, I went to London,
where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
was turned once more.

The _Madras_ left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
the Isle of Wight. The _Madras_ was a singularly appropriate vessel for
one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
not stay to finish it.