They edged their way cautiously through the Canal, and bore down the Red Sea with wind and weather in their favour. The sky and sea were like Oxford and Cambridge blue; there was not a ripple in the water. The far-receding Arabian coast engaged the attention of at least a dozen deluded opera-glasses looking out for Mount Sinai. Oddly-shaped islands were passed, including the notorious “Brothers,” so little above water and so much in the line of traffic, that more than one ill-fated steamer has borne down on them at full speed and sunk like a stone. Aden was left behind in due time, and after a pleasant breezy run across the Indian Ocean, one early morning Colaba lighthouse was descried in sight, and not long afterwards they were steaming majestically up Bombay harbour, and anchored off the Apollo Bund. To a new arrival, how bright and gorgeous and eastern it all looked! The long low stretch of land, covered with white and yellow buildings of all shapes and sizes, set off with a background of green trees; rising here and there against the turquoise sky were palms lofty and graceful, which alone made everyone realise that they were actually in the East at last. The harbour was crowded with shipping. Steamers and sailing ships at anchor abounded on all sides; and flitting in every direction were native bunderboats plying between them and the shore. Fishing-boats, with enormous lateen-shaped sails, were spread up the harbour towards Elephanta. Even the grotesque junk was represented; and altogether the scene was novel and lively. And now for the moment of parting and disembarking on board the _Alligator_. None of the former were particularly tender, for there had been no very _prononcé_ flirtations. In this respect the troopers pale before the P. and O., and those who were bound for the same station had generally herded together on the voyage out. There was wild work at the railway station, but after awhile the _Alligator’s_ late freight were steaming along to their several destinations in Bengal, Madras, or Bombay. Sir Reginald Fairfax and Captain Vaughan, Seventeenth Hussars, along with the draft in their charge, were forwarded to Camelabad; and after a wearisome three-days’ journey, half-blinded with glare and smothered with dust, they found themselves (figuratively speaking) in the arms of their brother “Braves.” The Seventeenth had only recently arrived in the station, and had barely shaken down into the quarters vacated by the out-going “Guides,” whose furniture, horses, and traps they had also succeeded to, after the exchange of sundry bags of rupees, as horses, traps and furniture, once settled at an Indian station, rarely leave it. An old _habitué_ will say to a new arrival--a bride most likely, and vain of her first equipage: “Oh, I see you have got the Carsons carriage.” “Oh dear no; it is ours.”