e scenes passing
below. He had no eye for the tramps, laden with grain from Odessa,
coming down from the Black Sea; for the vessels of ancient shape and
build, such as the Argonauts might have sailed in when questing for
the Golden Fleece; for the graceful caiques rowed by boatmen in
zouaves of crimson and gold, in the sterns of which the flower of
Circassian beauty in gossamer veils reclined on divans and carpets
from the most famous looms of Persia and Bokhara. These visions
touched him not: he was crossing into Asia Minor, a country of which
he knew nothing, and his attention was divided between the country
ahead and the map with which Barracombe had nefariously provided him.

The next stage of his journey, the first place where a fresh supply of
petrol awaited him, was Karachi, in the north-west corner of India. It
was distant about 2,500 miles. A gallon of petrol would carry him for
forty-five miles, and his tank had a capacity of eighty gallons, so
that with good luck he would not need to replenish it until he reached
Karachi. Though he hoped that his own endurance and the engine's would
stand the strain of the whole distance without stopping, he had chosen
his course so that, if he felt the necessity of alighting for brief
intervals, he might at least find pleasant country and amicable
people.

His aim was to cross the Turkish provinces in Asia and strike the
Persian Gulf, a slightly longer route than if he had gone through
central Persia, but having the great advantage of affording a possible
half-way house at Bagdad, Basra, or Bushire, in each of which towns he
would almost certainly find Europeans. It had the further advantage
that, when he had once sighted the Gulf, he would have no anxiety
about the accuracy of his course, since by keeping generally to the
coastline of Persia and Baluchistan he could not fail to arrive at
Karachi. It was a great thing to be independent of nautical
observations, for as he approached the shores of India it might be
difficult to take his bearings by his instruments, this being the
season of the monsoon.

When he left Constantinople his anemometer indicated a velocity of
eighteen miles in the south-west wind, which, as he was steering
south-east, was partly in his favour. One of the disabilities which
he, in common with all airmen, suffered, was the impossibility of
ascertaining the velocity of the wind when he was fairly afloat. He
had to make allowance for it by sheer gues