and. Put a camel in a
pasture of rich, succulent grass and he will roam about with a far-away,
disconsolate look and an expression of disgust, but here, on the glaring
white sands of the desert with nothing to browse upon but prickly dry
shrubs he is in the seventh 'heaven of a camel's delight.

Very curious it looks as we approach Suez to see the spars and masts of
big steamers moving along the ship-canal, close at hand, without seeing
anything of the water. The high dumps, representing the excavations from
the canal, conceal everything but the masts and the top of the funnels
even when one is close by.

Several days are spent at Suez, waiting for the steamer which we will
call the Mandarin, on which I am to take passage to Karachi. Suez is a
wretched hole, although there is a passably good English hotel facing the
water-front. It is the month of Bairam, however, and there is
consequently a good deal of picturesque life in the native quarters.

Suez seems swarming with guides, and as I am, for the greater part of a
week, the only guest at the hotel, they show me far more attention than a
dozen people would know what to do with. Some want to take me to see the
place where Moses struck the rock, others urge me to visit the spot where
the Israelites crossed the Red Sea; both these places being suspiciously
handy to Suez.

Donkey boys dog one's footsteps with their long-eared chargers, whenever
one ventures outside the hotel. "I'm the Peninsular and Oriental Donkey
Boy, sir, Jimmy Johnson; I have a good donkey, sir, when you want to
ride, ask for Jimmy Johnson." To all this, sundry seductive offers are
added, such as a short trial trip along the bund.

The Mandarin comes along on July 7th, and a decidedly stably smell is
wafted over the waters toward us as we follow behind her with the little
launch that is to put me aboard when the steamer condescends to ease up
and allow us to approach. The Mandarin, owing to the quarantine, has kept
me waiting several days at Suez, and when at last she steams out of the
canal and we give chase with the little launch, and finally range
alongside, the whole length of the deck is observed to be bristling with
ears. Some particularly hopeful agent of the Indian Government has been
sanguine enough to ship one hundred and forty mules from Italy to Karachi
during the monsoon season, on the deck of a notoriously rolling ship, and
with nothing but temporary plank fittings to confine the mule