On the evening of the 16th of November, we got into the train for our final journey. It was daylight when we descended the Ghauts, a most wonderful piece of engineering. The railway goes down a sheer fall of nineteen hundred feet, in a succession of zig-zags. Our train was a long one. The carriage we were in was at the end, and, in looking out of the window, the engine, with its following, seemed another train on quite a different line far below us. It was the afternoon when we reached Bombay. It has left no very distinct impression on my mind, as we proceeded direct from the station to the tug, which took us off to the huge _Jumna_, that was lying waiting for us. We were fortunate in every respect in our voyage in her. The weather was perfect, and Captain Richards, the captain of _H.M.S. Jumna_, was unvaryingly kind and courteous. On the 17th of November, the shores of India faded away, never to be looked on by me again. The splendid ship we were in, with its luxurious comforts, was a contrast to the vessel in which I had come out to India thirteen years before. Now, on our return home, we were embarked in a magnificent troopship. I think there were seventeen hundred souls on board, but everything was in such beautiful order that there was no confusion. My regiment got on capitally, and Captain Richards reported very favourably of the men’s conduct when in his ship. 1870–71 was the last season that regiments were conveyed across the isthmus from Suez to Alexandria by train. We left the _Jumna_ with much regret. The train was drawn up almost immediately alongside. We started in the evening from Suez, and arrived at Alexandria about seven o’clock next morning--one man short. He got out in the desert to get a drink--as we heard long afterwards--and the train went on without him, in consequence of which he lost his home passage, as well as his train. On arrival at Alexandria, we embarked at once on a tug, and proceeded on board the _Crocodile_. One of the many children that were accompanying their parents home distinguished himself on the short trajet from the wharf to the troopship by carefully untying the fastenings of a cage-door, and letting loose a very valuable minar, which the unconscious owner had brought at great trouble to himself from the far north of India. I do not think he ever knew how his bird escaped. Minars speak most perfectly, much more distinctly and with a better imitation of the human voice than a parrot.