"Walking in the street at Larnica, I met a person whom I did not know, who, to my extreme surprise, fell on my neck and kissed both cheeks quite affectionately, I had not recognized my dirty acquaintance in this clean, well-dressed gentleman, probably fresh from the bath." Many were the difficulties Newman and his friends had to encounter in hiring a vessel to sail to Ladakîa [Footnote: Laodicea of Syria.] on the opposite coast. At last a bargain was struck with a Turkish ship for five pounds. But the ship had battled already against the contretemps of too many voyages. She could no longer beat against the wind as once she used to do. Four times they set sail, and four times had to put back again into port. The captain had only an old French map "marked with crosses at certain places, the cross meaning _porto_, as the captain explained." He needed help, however, from his passengers to be quite sure which was which! In this ship they lived with discomfort for a whole month. Still, all of the friends kept well. The distance from Ladakîa to Aleppo is about 120 English miles. And this journey added to discomfort, hardship, and to hardship--lack of food for the mission party. It necessitated travelling three miles into the hills, and when a lofty bleak plain was reached, the muleteers made it clear that they were to spend the night there. "We heaped our rudest boxes to make a wall, and on the lee side prepared a sleeping-place, stretching over it some oilskins.... We had a small supply of food in baskets.... All night the rain fell in torrents.... Our whole floor was swamped; we had to sit on carpet bags and let them get wet. Clothes, bedding, bags, baskets, were drenched, and we had to mount in the morning in the midst of rain.... The roads were river-beds.... After riding eleven hours without dismounting (the beasts never leave their walking pace).... We had fasted the whole day, yet none of us suffered; not even old Mrs. Cronin, for whom I greatly feared." I should add here that Francis Newman was strongly in favour of women riding astride instead of on the Early-Victorian side-saddle, which necessitates a woman riding in an artificial, twisted position. Still, at the period at which he is writing, Early-Victorian ideas about the fitness of things were so much _de rigueur_ that Mrs. Cronin, when forced to ride astride, was terribly disturbed. "'Ach, Edward,' said she to her son, 'I expected they would persecute and murdher us, but I never thought to ride across a mule!'... Three times did her mule come down with her, poor lady, and all three in dangerous places. "None of the rest suffered so many falls, nor, I think, any of the laden beasts. Her son was in terrible distress at every fall, for he was carrying his infant in his arms ... and he could not put the child down in the mud without danger to it."