And now nothing remained but to escape as quickly as possible
from the ugly Wady Mismah; with its violent, dusty wester, or
sea-breeze, and its sun-glare which, reflected and reverberated
by the quartz, burned the grass and made the trees resemble
standing timber.

April 10th saw the last of our marches, a hurry back to the
stable, a sauve qui peut. The camel-men, reckless of orders,
began to load and to slip away shortly after midnight. Ali Marie,
who, as usual, had lost his head, when ordered to enjoin silence
gave the vain and vague direction, "Tell the Arabs to tell the
camels not to make so much noise." Even the bugler sounded the
"general" of his own accord; and the mules, now become painfully
intelligent, walked as if they knew themselves to be walking
homewards. Our last stage lay over the upper skirts of the
maritime plain which has already been noticed. At 10.15 am.,
after riding five hours and thirty minutes (= seventeen miles),
we found ourselves once more upon the seaboard. Our kind host,
Captain Hasan Bey, came to meet us in his gig: the quarter-deck
had been dressed with flags, as for a ball; and before twelve
bells struck, we had applied ourselves to an excellent breakfast
in the gun-room of our old favourite, the Sinnar. The auspicious
day of course ended with a fantasia.





Resume of Our Last Journey.