CHAPTER VII
SYRIA
Beyrout-Fever-Death of dragoman at Damascus-jaffa-Descent of Jordan-Home
Q U R company parted at Alexandria. Barclay returned home, I went to Syria, and Boulton desired to go farther East, to study Arabic and Oriental modes of thought and expression. Our paths crossed only once in Syria. Owing to misadventures, and to my great regret, I never saw him after. He made his way to the British forces, then engaged in the siege of Mooltan, and was the guest of their commander, General Whish. He stationed himself, against advice, in a loopholed tower to witness the progress of the fight, a matchlock ball penetrated his eye and killed himm on the spot. I heard the story many years afterwards from General Whish himself.
I sailed from Alexandria to Beyrout with my dragoman Ali and my two pet monkeys. We were then put into quarantine, where Ali found a party of negress girls who had been captured on the borders
of Abyssinia during the very fighting for which my acquaintance in the caravan was bound. They had been taken to Beyrout via the Red Sea. The girls were delighted to talk to us of places known to them
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