[7] A good pendant to this is Mr. Gilbert, to whom an aggressive masher said, "Aw--call me a four--wheelah." "Call you a four-wheelah? Of course, I will call you a 'four-wheelah' if you wish. I would call you 'a hansom' if _I could_." CHAPTER II. INDIA. We embarked at once for India. Baron D'Alber, my husband's best friend, the local Minister of Finance in Trieste, and the Captain of the Port, came in the Government boat to take us to the Austrian-Lloyd's _Calypso_, Captain Bogójevich. H.R.H. the Duke of Wurtemburg, who was our Commander-in-Chief, so distinguished in the Bosnian campaign; Baron Pascotini, a kind, clever, philanthropic old gentleman of eighty-four, and all the great people, came to see us off, to do honour to Richard. How touched we were at so much kindness! We steamed down the Adriatic with a fresh breeze. The day after, Richard began to dictate to me the biography which forms the beginning of this book. We read the life of Moore and the "Veiled Prophet of Khorassán," called by Moore Mokanna, whose real name was Hassan-Sabah, or Hassan es Sayyah. When we got to Zante it blew very hard. Our chairs were lashed on deck, and we read daily "Lalla Rookh," the "Light of the Haram," and Smollett's "Adventures of Roderick Random" and "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." At Port Sáid, which is a sort of an Egyptian Wapping, we ran over the sands to see an Arab village. We met a lot of old friends, Consul and Mrs. Perceval, Mr. Buckley, F.O., Colonel Stoker, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Cave, and the grand old Baron de Lesseps, and Salih Beg, Mr. Royal, Mr. Webster, Mr. Fowler, and other gentlemen at dinner at the Consulate. We much enjoyed the Canal, seeing once more an Eastern sunrise over the desert, but it made us sad contrasting our old days with our present. We had a glorious moonlight, blue sky, clear green water, cool balmy air, golden sands to the very horizon, troops of Bedawi camels and goats. It is a wild and dangerous track. We had the north-east monsoon dead against us the whole way after going out of the Canal, which made the ship pretty lively. In the Red Sea there is much to be seen for those who know the coasts, and my husband pointed out the far-off sites of his old Meccan journey, and the land of Midian and Akabeh, which would be a _future_ journey. On the thirteenth day we serpentined through twenty miles of mostly hidden reefs and slabs to Jeddah, the Port of Mecca, which can only be done in broad daylight, one ship at a time, and no lighthouses. We collided with an English ironclad ship, which did us considerable damage, so we had to remain some time, before we were repaired, and our pilgrims continued to arrive from Mecca, as we were a pilgrim-ship about to carry eight or nine hundred to Bombay.