be caught off his guard and be flung violently
to the deck, but the look of astonishment dies away as it nimbly regains
its feet, and gives place to angry attack on its neighbor and a
half-reproachful, half-apprehensive look at the sea. So far, however, the
mules seem to more than hold their own, and, all oblivious of what is
before them, they are comparatively happy and mischievous. But on the
night of the third day out from Aden, the full force of the monsoon
swells strikes the Mandarin, and, true to her character, she responds by
rolling and pitching about in the trough of the sea in a manner that
fills the mules with consternation, and ends in their utter collapse and
demoralization. Planks break and give way as the whole body of mules are
flung violently and simultaneously forward, and before midnight the mules
are piled up in promiscuous and struggling heaps, while tons of water
come on deck and wash and tumble them about in all imaginable shapes and
forms.

All hands are piped up and kept busy tying the mules' legs, to prevent
them regaining their feet only to be flung violently down again in the
midst of a struggling heap of their fellows. There is only one mule
actually dead in the morning, but the others are the worst used up,
discouraged lot of mules I ever saw. Mules that but the day before would
nearly jump out of their skins if one attempted to pat their noses, now
seem anxious to court human attention and to atone for past sins. Many of
them are pretty badly skinned up and bruised, and a few of them are
well-nigh flayed alive from being see-sawed back and forth about the
deck. It is not a pleasant picture to dwell upon, and it would be much
pleasanter to have to record that the mules proved too much for the
monsoon, but truth will prevail, and before we reach Karachi the monsoon
has scored fourteen mules dead and pretty much all the others more or
less wounded. But this is no discredit to the mules; in fact, I have
greater respect for the staying qualities of a mule than ever before,
since the monsoon only secures ten per cent of them for the sharks after
all.

A week from Aden, and fourteen days from Suez we reach Karachi. The tide
happens to be out at the time, and so we have to lay to till the
following morning, when the Mandarin crosses the bar and drops anchor
preparatory to unloading the now badly demoralized mules into lighters.

Karachi bids fair to develop into a very prominent sea-port in the