that they decided to sail forth and give battle. This they did, but before
they joined in fight the ships of the two admirals sailed up near each
other--the Portuguese commander sent the British a gorgeous scarlet
ceremonial cloak, the British responded by sending him a handsomely
embossed sword. The British admiral donned the cloak, the Portuguese
grasped the sword; a page brought each a cup of wine; they pledged each
other, threw the goblets into the sea, and fell to. The British were
victorious. Times indeed have sadly changed in the last three hundred
years!

I was much struck with the accuracy of the geographical descriptions in
Camoens' letters and odes. He is the greatest of the Portuguese poets and
wrote the larger part of his master-epic, "The Lusiad," while exiled in
India. For seventeen years he led an adventurous life in the East; and it
is easy to recognize many harbors and stretches of coast line from his
inimitable portrayal.

Busra, our destination, lies about sixty miles from the mouth of the Shatt
el Arab, which is the name given to the combined Tigris and Euphrates
after their junction at Kurna, another fifty or sixty miles above. At the
entrance to the river lies a sand-bar, effectively blocking access to
boats of as great draft as the _Saxon_. We therefore transshipped to some
British India vessels, and exceedingly comfortable we found them, designed
as they were for tropic runs. We steamed up past the Island of Abadan,
where stand the refineries of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It is hard to
overestimate the important part that company has played in the conduct of
the Mesopotamian campaign. Motor transport was nowhere else a greater
necessity. There was no possibility of living on the country; at first,
at all events. General Dickson, the director of local resources, later set
in to so build up and encourage agriculture that the army should