ry of State for India. He has been
on a mission in the interests of his father to obtain certain information,
though he holds no official position.

"Sir Modava Rao has held several official positions in India, and is
perhaps more familiar with the country and its British and native
governments than any other man. He has been travelling with Lord Tremlyn,
to assist him in obtaining the information connected with his unofficial
mission. My lord has completed the work assigned to him; but the viceroy
wished him to visit the Imam of Muscat unofficially for a certain purpose I
am not at liberty to state.

"In a small steam-yacht owned by Sir Modava, the most devoted friend of his
lordship, in which he had been all around the peninsula, and up several of
its rivers, we embarked for Muscat, and safely reached that country. Then
the viscount decided to proceed to Aden, where he had important business;
for he intended to return to England by the Euphrates route, in order to
inform himself in regard to the navigation of the river. We sailed for
Aden, believing we should have the calm and pleasant weather of the
north-east monsoon.

"Yesterday we encountered the gale from the south-west, which was very
unusual. But the Travancore was an able seaboat, and we went along very
well until we were run into by a steamer in the darkness and mist early
this morning. The side of the little steamer was stove in, and she began to
fill. We put on our life-preservers, and prepared for the worst. We
stretched a life-line fore and aft, and listened to the gurgling waters
below deck. Suddenly, when she was partly filled with water, she capsized.
We clung to the life-line, which unhitched forward.

"Of course we expected she would go down; but she did not for several
hours. We had our life-preservers on, and we made fast the lines forward,
which saved us from being washed off the bottom of the vessel. I had a
revolver in my pocket, and when I saw the port light of your steamer, I
fired it, and we all shouted at the top of our lungs.

"We could hear the air and the water bubbling and hissing under us at
times, and it was understood that the confined air above the water in the
hull had kept her afloat. But this air had all escaped as the
Guardian-mother approached us, and with no warning she went to the bottom.
We were floated by our life-preservers till your boats picked us up, though
we were fearfully shaken and tossed about by the waves. Our