re there is cause to think that the expenditure of powder may
be inconvenient to your hosts, or that for any reason they may not
return a salute, it is customary first to inquire whether the usual
national honors "to the flag" will be acceptable and duly answered,
gun for gun. In Aden, being British, of course no questions were
asked; but in Muscat I presume they were, for failure to give full
measure creates a diplomatic incident and correspondence. At all
events, we saluted--twenty-one guns; to which the castle replied. When
the tale was but half complete there came from one of its cannon a
huge puff of smoke, but no accompanying report. "Shall I count that?"
shouted the quartermaster, whose special duty was to keep tally that
we got our full pound of flesh. A general laugh followed; the
impression had resembled that produced by an impassioned orator, the
waving of whose arms you see, without hearing the words which give
point to his gesticulations, and the quartermaster's query drove home
the absurdity. It was solemnly decided, however, that that should be
reckoned a gun. The intention was good, if result was imperfect. We
had been done out of our noise, but we had had our smoke; and, in
these days of smokeless powder, it is hopeful to record an instance of
noiseless.

In those few indolent days which we drowsed away in the heat of
Muscat, one thing I noticed was the vivid green of the water,
especially in patches near the shore, and in the crevices of the rocky
basin. I wonder did Moore have a hint of this, or draw upon his
imagination? Certainly it was there--a green more brilliant than any I
have ever seen elsewhere, and of different shade.

"No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water,
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee."

After the comparatively sequestered series of St. Augustine's Bay, the
Comoros, Aden, and Muscat, our next port, Bombay, seemed like
returning to city hubbub and accustomed ways. True, Indian life was
strange to most of our officers, if not to all; but there was about
Bombay that which made you feel you had got back into the world,
albeit in many particulars as different from that you had hitherto
known as Rip Van Winkle found after his long slumber. Then, a decade
only after the great mutiny, travel to India for travel's sake was
much more rare than now. The railway system, that great promoter of
journeyings, was not complete. Two years later, when returning from
Chin