agaries of our long-eared cargo.

All goes well with them, however, as we glide along the placid bosom of
the Red Sea; the oppressive heat has a wilting effect even on the riotous
spirits of the young mules. They still exhibit their mulish contempt for
the barriers reared so confidingly around them, and develop new and
startling traits of devilment every day; but it is not until we leave
Aden, and the long swells come rolling up from the monsoon region, that
the real fun begins. The Mandarin lurches and rolls awfully, making it
extremely difficult at times for any of the mules to keep their feet;
each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling
and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both
lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the
same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and
swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate
them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their
neighbors and at a wave at the same time; but it is when their undivided
attention is centred upon the crested billow of a swell that sweeps
alongside the ship and flings a white, foamy cataract at the business end
of each mule as it advances, that their marvellous heel-flinging capacity
becomes apparent. Each mule batters frantically away as the wave strikes
him, and the rattle of nimble and indignant hoofs on the iron bulwarks
follows the wave along from one end of the ship to the other.

One of the most arrogant and overbearing of the animals aboard is a
ginger-colored mule stationed almost amidships on the starboard side.
This mule soon develops the extraordinary capacity of casting its eye
over the heaving waste of waters and distinguishing the particular wave
that intends coming over the bulwarks long before it reaches the vessel.
The historical arrogance of Canute's followers in thinking the waves
would recede at his command, is nothing in comparison to the cheeky
assumption of this ginger mule. This mule will fold back its ears, look
wild, and raise its heels menacingly at a white-crested wave when the
wave is yet a hundred yards away; and on the second day out from Aden its
arrogance develops in such an alarming degree that it bristles up and
lifts its heels at waves that its experience and never-flagging
observation must have taught it wouldn't come half-way up the bulwarks!

Now and then a mule will