having the
number he calls cover it, until all the numbers on their paper have been
covered. The first one to finish wins, and collects a penny from each of
the losers. The caller drones out the numbers with a monotony only
equalled by the brain-fever bird, and quite as disastrous to the nerves.
There are certain conventional nicknames: number one is always "Kelley's
eye," eleven is "legs eleven," sixty-six is "clickety click," and the
highest number is "top o' the 'ouse." There is another game that would be
much in vogue were it not for the vigilance of the officers. It is known
as "crown and anchor," and the advantage lies so strongly in favor of the
banker that he cannot fail to make a good income, and therefore the game
is forbidden under the severest penalties.

As we passed through the Strait of Ormuz memories of the early days of
European supremacy in the East crowded back, for I had read many a
vellum-covered volume in Portuguese about the early struggles for
supremacy in the gulf. One in particular interested me. The Portuguese
were hemmed in at Ormuz by a greatly superior English force. The expected
reinforcements never arrived, and at length their resources sank so low,
and they suffered in addition, or in consequence, so greatly from disease
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