and the entrance of the Red Sea from Perim. There is
a good anchorage on this side, so says our captain; but of course we
could not see it. I am sorry we passed it so late, as I should have
liked Gros to have seen it, in order that he might calm the
susceptibilities of his Government in respect to its formidable
character. I enclose a little bit of a plant which I gathered on my
return from the Pyramids. The botanist on board says it is a species
of camomile. It is a commonplace plant, with a little blue flower, but
I took a fancy to it, because it had the pluck to venture farther into
the Desert, and to approach nearer the Pyramids than any other which I
saw.

[Sidenote: Aden.]

_On Shore at Aden.--Noon._--I am at the house of Captain Playfair, who
represents the Resident during his absence. A very pleasant breeze is
blowing through the wall of reeds or bamboo, which encloses the
verandah in which I am writing. I am most agreeably disappointed by
the temperature; and, strange to say, both Captain P. and his wife do
not complain of Aden! So it is with all who live here. And yet, when
one looks at the place, dry as a heap of ashes, glared upon by a
tropical sun, without a single blade of grass to repose the eye, or a
drop of moisture from above to cool the air, save only about once in
two years, when the sluices of Heaven are opened, and the torrents
come down with a fury unexampled elsewhere, one feels at first
inclined to doubt whether it can be possible for human beings to live
here. I suppose that it is the reaction, produced by finding that it
is not quite so bad as it appears, that reconciles people to their
lot, and makes them so contented. We have got some scraps of China
news; and what there is, seems to be pacific.

[Sidenote: Books.]

_At Sea.--May 15th._--If we go on to China, if we take the matter in
hand, then I think, _coute que coute_, we must finish it, and finish
it thoroughly. I do not believe that it will take us long to do so;
but the indispensable is, that it should be done. This is my judgment
on the matter, and I tell it to you as it presents itself to my own
mind; but how much wiser is Gros, who does not peer into the dim
future, but awaits calmly the dispersion of the mists which surround
it!... He has been reading the book on Buddhism (St. Hilaire's), which