mers were coaling,
and their dust did not add any beauty to the picture, and the actual
landing is not very interesting; you get off the ship to the wharf in a
big launch, a slow process but quietly and well-managed, and on shore
have a little trouble about your luggage, even though it may be in the
hands of an agent. I'd two or three cab voyages, "gharry," I should have
said, before I got the best part of ours to the Taj Hotel. There a
friend had booked us our rooms before we sailed, and on the morning of
our arrival had very thoughtfully secured them with lock and key, so
that no unscrupulous Occidental could play on Oriental weakness and bag
them before our arrival.

The journeys in the gharry were not entirely successful, and I didn't
get all our baggage till next day, but they presented me with one
astounding series of beautiful pictures, so that my head fairly reeled
with the continuous effort to grasp the way of things and their forms
and colours, things in the street, themselves perhaps of no great
interest but for the intense colourful light.--There is a water carrier;
the sun shines blue on the back of his brown bare legs and back, and
blazes like electric sparks on the pairs of brass water pots he carries
slung across his shoulders. He is jogging along fast, his "shoulder knot
a-creaking," and the water that splashes on to the hot dust intensifies
the feeling of heat and light. Then you catch the flash of silver rings
in the dust on a woman's toes as she strides along, and have the
unfamiliar pleasure of seeing the human form, God's image in brown, and
note the rounded limbs and bust, and the movement of hip and swinging
arm through white draperies, which the sun makes a golden transparency.
What thousands of figures, and all in different costumes or bare skin.

[Illustration]

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived the day
before we did, so the air vibrates with the salutes from guns, and is
full of heat and curdling smoke, and colour. "The Prince" is distinctly
in the air, and we feel glad in consequence that we have arrived in
time to have seen the town at its brightest: from morning to night there
is one scene after another of continually shifting figures and colours,
perfectly fascinating to us new comers.

... Guns again from the war ships, aimed right at our windows!
Everything jingles, the air is quivering with the sound and light. The
ships in the bay are ablaze with flag