The guardian now advanced to the big alligator, and informed us that he was a legatee, and regularly fed under the terms of a will, and so independent of the votive kids. The brute allowed the man to open his jaws, and gave no signs of life, save that when called his eyes opened. He was a fine animal, but the rest of the muggers were what Americans would call “right mean little cusses.” We satisfied the priest and returned to Kurrachee, having seen its one sight.
One other thing, the oysters at Kurrachee are not bad, particularly when you know you won’t get any for five years to come.
We were much struck with the beauty and cheapness of the black-wood furniture here. This beautiful carved furniture is now, so they told us, out of fashion in India, and may be had for a song; the worst of it is, it is brittle and bulky. We went to one of the dealers and bought a hundred pounds’ worth, and for this sum our Persian home would have been sumptuously furnished; we made a contract with the seller, in writing, to pay him ten per cent. extra for the whole to be delivered free on board, in cases not weighing over three hundred pounds each, and not measuring more than four by three feet; if otherwise as to size and weight, the bargain to be off. The afternoon before the Arcot left, we, on our return from our drive, found the dealer on board, and he smilingly informed us that the furniture was all in the hold; he then presented his bill. I smelt a rat, as I had told him I must see the cases and weigh them before shipment. Luckily I did not trust the fellow, for some of the cases weighed eight hundred pounds, and of course could not have gone up country in Persia. I refused to take delivery, and was threatened with the law. But it appears that the dealer, on showing his contract to a solicitor, was told he had no case, and reluctantly removed his packages. I was sorry the man lost by the affair, but packages of huge size and weight were useless for mule carriage. So we lost our black-wood furniture.
We had ten days of the coast of Belūchistan and the Persian Gulf, stopping at Linga, Bunder Abbas, etc., though we did not go ashore, having no desire for some hours’ pull, in the sun, in an open native boat on a very rough sea.
At length Bushire was reached, and after a seven weeks’ voyage from the time we left London, we landed in Persia; and were hospitably entertained at the Residency, where Colonel Prideaux, one of the whilom captives of King Theodore, was Acting Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; Colonel Ross being at home on leave.
I was anxious to draw pay again, which I could only do on reaching my station, Shiraz; and to escape the rains: so I engaged a muleteer, and finding two of my old servants and a boy in Bushire, we started with thirty mules, ourselves riding muleteers’ ponies.
Our stay in Bushire lasted only four days, and at some personal discomfort we started, hoping to avoid the rains which were due in a fortnight.
CHAPTER XXXII.
FROM THE PERSIAN GULF TO ISPAHAN.
Our start for Shiraz—Camp out—Borasjūn—Spring at Dalliké—Kotuls—Kazerūn—Buy a horse—A tough climb—Place of Collins’s murder—Arrive in Shiraz—Hire a house—Settle down—Breaking horses—Night marching—Difficulties of start—Mūrghab—Find our muleteer and loads—Abadeh—Yezdikhast—Koomishah—Mayar—Marg—Arrive in Julfa.