The Imaum's palace was close to the water's edge in front of the town, and his highness received Reuben and myself in an arbour or veranda open to the sea. At the entrance to the veranda stood several well dressed Arabs armed with sword, spear, and dagger, and half a dozen dirty looking Abyssinians clothed somewhat like the sepoys in our Indian army, and equipped much after the same fashion. These latter, as I understood, were paraded in honour of my visit; and indeed generally form the _garde du corps_ on occasions of an Englishman's presentation at the _Court of Muscat_. The Imaum rose on our entrance and accommodated us with chairs, and after we had been served with some insipid sherbet, addressed himself to me on the subject of my journey, its object and direction; and then touched on the politics of Europe. Our interview closed by his highness offering me the use of his horses, his houses, and his ships of war, the cabins of which afforded excellent accommodation, and which were generally occupied by English visiters. The Imaum of Muscat is passionately fond of horses, and devotes considerable time and attention to their breeding. Of some of the finest horses in his stud, the Imaum makes presents to the governors of the Indian presidencies, and deserving officers in his own service. Horses likewise form an article of trade between Muscat and India, and yield, as I have been told, a considerable profit. (Intellect is not on the march at Bushire. It contains a small school founded by the famous Joseph Wolff, and supported by the British residents in Persia. Mr. Wolff projected much; but Mr. Stocqueler says:) The school possessed, while I was at Bushire, no more than thirteen pupils, who were struggling through the rudiments of the Persian and Armenian languages, under the guidance of a sleepy old Armenian. (At Koete, our author visited three brothers, "all dressed alike and so much resembling each other in feature, and in the total loss of the left eye, that it was difficult to discover my friend the supercargo, who had accompanied us from Bombay." Koete is about a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad. The houses are built of mud and stone, and flat roofed with the trunk of the date tree. Around it is a wall, beyond which nothing is to be seen but a vast sandy plain, extending more than sixty miles. Within the walls, it is equally sterile, it literally yields _nothing_; here, "all _is_ barren," and the water is far from sweet, yet 4,000 souls live, though the sheikh keeps up no standing army. Mr. S. sails thence into the _Shut-ul-Arab_, [River of the Arabs,] the banks of which are more delightful than those of the Thames at Richmond. At Bussorah--a _bain à la Turque_.)