or for any other Power, a good supply of fresh water was a primary essential, It would be a necessity anywhere; but how much more so in the arid and nearly rainless Persian Gulf?

Hitherto, we had found the water of the khor to be of the most bitterly salt character, having nearly twice the salinity of the open ocean; and the lack of fresh water, I could not but feel, was a severe handicap on the value of the discovery of this otherwise possible base for small craft.

But as we steamed up Khor Dorak, and every few miles tested the water for density, I found, to my great satisfaotion, that first it was becoming less and less salt, then less and less brackish, until finally, at about fifteen miles from the mouth, it was quite fresh. The scenery ohanged with the saltness. The dreary sandy plain, fronted by tidal mud-flats, gave way, as we steamed inland, before the soft influence of the fresh water. At ten miles from Khor Musa coarse bamboograss began to fringe the banks, while the strip of pasture-land on both sides behind them became wider and wider, richer and richer, until it spread out, green and far, to the flat horizon, and was dotted with cattle and sheep. After twenty miles, villages and date-palm groves began to appear on both sides, whence stupefied men and a myriad of half-terrified children

At last our waterway nar. rowed into a small stream ten yards wide, and finally we were brought up by a small bridge thrown across it at the village of Beziya. Here we landed, and while Abdullah bought fowls for us at a shilling apiece, and five fat sheep at twelve shillings each (O happy uncontrolled land!), I got observations of the sun to find out our geographical position. When the ebb stream began, we started home with it; and as we went back, checked the running survey of the river I had made on the way up, getting more sun-observations for longitude when the conditions were propitious. Not far from the spot where Khor Dorak opened into Khor Musa there was a sand-bar, which we had just, but only just, negotiated in the steamoutter on the way up. boat was then drawing 2 feet; but on the return journey, with our marketings at Beziya making a considerable extra cargo, several further inehes had been added to our draught. It was getting dusk when we reached this point, and the old pilot was squatting in the bows, directing our course with solemn authoritative wavings of the right hand or of the left. Presently he gave quiet utterance to a short remark. Abdullah translated: "The pilot says,

The

en, for a further twenty miles, in the steam-cutter to the westward. The khor ended here in a muddy cul-de-sac, into which fell several small streams of fresh water, none of them large enough, however, to affect the salinity of the khor water to any marked degree. There were no inhabitants nor cattle to be seen; but it was evident that, once upon a time, the surrounding land had been lived on by men, for traces of irrigation channels, now wrecked and fallen in, could be seen in all directions. Up at the head of the khor several wild pigs, outcasts of Arabia, could be seen rooting and wallowing in the mud of the streams. They looked at us in dismay, and rushed noisily away. On the return journey we met a native boat which had got into the khor through a branch channel, having come by a devious route from the Bahmishir river, some miles to the westward. The men in it told us that the khor was named "Bukhader," and that it had been, one hundred and seventy years ago, an outlet of running water from the Karún river, but that it had gradually silted up; and the villages which formerly had existed along the banks had disappeared as the water became more and more salt.

We had a curious experience during this exploration. As we steamed up the khor, I was looking out for a place at which to land to get sunobservations for longitude, when I saw, ୫ short way ahead of the boat, and olese

This

to the water's edge, a sandy cliff, apparently ten or twelve feet high, with some flat ground in front of it. In the face of the cliff was a row of caves, high enough at their entrances for a man to stand upright; and they were barricaded, each of them, with boughs of brushwood. On the flat top of the cliff into which they had been scooped stood a few low treetrunks, cut "short off." Kemp, who was accompanying me as usual, was as much interested and surprised as myself. was, to him as to me, quite a new type of Arab habitation; and we decided to land at the spot, to visit the troglodyte dwellings, and examine the unusual vegetation. As we approached in the boat, we were rather surprised to find that the caves seemed somewhat smaller than we had at first supposed; but we landed abreast, and walked up to them. On reaching them, we looked at one another in blank and even creepy dismay! It was as if we both had fallen under the spell of some ancient Arabian necromancer! For the "cliff" had become only twelve inches high; the "oaves " were mere holes burrowed into them by some sea- bird; the "barricades of boughs" turned out to be a few little brushwood sticks laid in the mouth of the holes in the form of a nest; and the "tree-trunks on top were but the broken stalks of a sorubby plant, a few inches high, that covered the surrounding wilderness! We walked backwards from the spot, and as we did so magni

fication and mystification began anew. At twenty yards objeots were already three to four times their proper size, and at one hundred yards they were ten times enlarged. I can only leave it at that, humbly supposing the effect to be due to some peculiarity of refraction, through the dry and uniformly heated air. The same thing occurred farther up the khor; for the wild-pig we saw on the bank seemed from the boat to be as large as bullocks-ereatures of nightmare, with snouts like crocodiles', and with a mane of bristles on their shoulders, shaggy and great, almost, as a bison's. Probably they would have diminished into ordinary lean little pigs had we been able to get near them. Distance, on this occasion, certainly lent enchantment to the view!

The exploration of Khor Bakhader ended, we felt we ought to be moving on. We had already spent a whole fortnight over this one harbour; the weather was getting hotter every day, and there was still the whole coast of

Persia to be examined. I felt, however, that the importance of the discovery of this wonderful deep-water anchorage, far inland, entirely protected from attack from seaward, and having an abundant freshwater supply, easily available by pipeline or otherwise, fully warranted the expenditure of time I had given it. It was, I felt convinced, the only harbour in Persia endowed with so many possibilities; and the good luck in hitting on it could scarcely be repeated throughout the much better-known coast-line that stretched for over four hundred miles southward before me.

The gilt was off the gingerbread at the first mouthful, yet the rest of the cake remained to be eaten, and accordingly we set forth in the little Sphinx next morning, skirting the wide sandy shoals that preclude all approach by ships to the north-eastern part of the head of the Gulf, and so came to Bushire, where we had to make a short stay, in order to get mails, coals, stores, and provisions.

On the afternoon of May the 1st I was writing some letters in the drawing-room of my club, when my attention was diverted from my work by the sound of drums without, as is said in Shakespeare's plays. The drumming was so loud that, but for its want of skill, it might have suggested that the massed bands of the Household Brigade were marching past the club-house. I went on the balcony to see what all the noise was about. A long procession of men, women, and children, interspersed with bodies of vigorous if not very musical musicians, was slowly winding its way along Pall Mall towards Hyde Park. I was told, what I should have known, that it represented London's contribution to the May Day International Festival of Labour.

With some other members of the club I remained a little time on the balcony watching the procession drag its slow length along. All the men, women, and children who walked or rode in it wore red rosettes, and many of them carried red banners; without exception they were well dressed and well fed, and few of them appeared to belong to the class of manual labourers; and many of them had features and a complexion which recalled not so much an English 88 an Eastern clime. Some

of them as they passed the clubs-which, no doubt, were associated in their mind with aristocratic indolence and luxury beyond the dreams of opulence shook their red banners menacingly, and glaring up at the grey-haired thin-faced members on the balcony, called out, “Are we Bolshevios? We are." Not unfrequently the accent reminded me of Whitechapel.

From time to time the procession came to a dead stop, so frequently indeed as to suggest that neither the marchers nor the organisers of the march had seen much service in the late war. It was during one of these stops that an incident occurred which surprised some of us: a detachment of this precession of Englishmen began in the middle of Waterloo Place to sing an anti-English song, "God save Ireland." Moreover, it was received by the English processionists with applause: the English speotators of the procession maintained a silence which could be heard.

This anti-English demonstration in the centre of the capital of England was applauded by the English processionists. I wonder what would happen to men who, in an Irish procession, made an antiIrish demonstration in the centre of the capital of Ireland? Well, perhaps it is not neces