But not for such small matter would the H. E. I. C.’s ship-of-war ‘Elphinstone’ have the trouble of casting loose and of loading her guns gratis. With the Sayyid’s plain blood-red ensign at the main, and with union-jack at the fore, she cast anchor in Front Bay, and gallantly delivered her fire of 21. Thereupon a gay bunting flew up to every truck ashore and afloat, whilst the brass carronades of the ‘Victoria,’ another item of the Maskat navy, roared a response of 22, and, curious to say, did not blow off a single gunner’s arms. We had arrived on the fortieth or last day of Moslem mourning; and the mourning was for Sayyid Said, our native friend and ally, who had for so many years been calling for volunteers and explorers, and from whom the East African expedition had been taught to expect every manner of aid except the pecuniary. We lost no time in tumbling into a gig and in visiting the British Consulate, a large solid pile, coloured like a twelfth-cake, and shaped like a claret-chest, which lay on its side, comfortably splashed by the sea. Lieut.-Colonel Atkins Hamerton, of the Indian Army, H.B.M.’s Consul and H. E. I. C.’s agent, to whom I was directed to report arrival, was now our mainstay, but we found him in the poorest state of health. He was aroused from lethargy by the presence of strangers, and after the usual hospitable orders my letters were produced and read. Those entrusted to me by Lord Elphinstone, and by his Eminence the learned and benevolent Cardinal Wiseman, for whom he had the profoundest respect, pleased him greatly; but he put aside the missive of the Royal Geographical Society, declaring that he had been terribly worried for ‘copy’ by sundry writing and talking members of that distinguished body. I can even now distinctly see my poor friend sitting before me, a tall, broad-shouldered, and powerful figure, with square features, dark, fixed eyes, hair and beard prematurely snow-white, and a complexion once fair and ruddy, but long ago bleached ghastly pale by ennui and sickness. Such had been the effect of the burning heats of Maskat and ‘the Gulf,’ and the deadly damp of Zanzibar, Island and Coast. The worst symptom in his case—one which I have rarely found other than fatal—was his unwillingness to quit the place which was slowly killing him. At night he would chat merrily about a remove, about a return to Ireland; he loathed the subject in the morning. To escape seemed a physical impossibility, when he had only to order a few boxes to be packed, and to board the first home-returning ship. In this state the invalid requires the assistance of a friend, of a man who will order him away, and who will, if he refuses, carry him off by main force. Our small mountain of luggage was soon housed, and we addressed ourselves seriously to the difficulties of our position. That night’s rest was not sweet to us. I became as the man of whom it was written—