volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

288 The Opening of the Kdriin River.
very great kindness, and I shall never forget the hospitality
of the Ward Room Mess, nor their wonderful
dog " Rags."^ Messrs. Lynch's steamer, the " Blosse
Lynch," was anchored near the " Sphinx," and when
Captain Hart Dyke and I boarded her I found that her
Commander was my friend Somerset, who had made
the journey to Babylon with me two years earlier. He
offered me a passage to Ahwaz, and I was very sorry
I could not go with him, for I heard that the Dieulafoys
had just come back from Shushtar with many valuable
antiquities.
We left Basrah at 3 a.m. on March ist in the British
India s.s. " Kilwa," and reached Muhammarah at five,
where we took on board over 100 tons of cargo ; this
unusual amount of cargo was one of the results of the
opening up of the Karun to commercial traffic. We left
at ten, and at 3.10 p.m. arrived at Faw, where we were
stopped by signal from the Submarine Cable Station.
Mr. Gumming came on board and handed over to me a
couple of cases containing birds and butterflies which
he had collected for the British Museum (Natural
History), and I shipped them in due course with other
cases for England. We reached Bushire on March 2nd,
and again 1 enjoyed the delightful hospitality of Colonel
Ross. In the afternoon he drove Captain Chandler
of H.M.I. M.S. " Lawrence," Captain Trench and myself
out to the Telegraph Station, where the Director,
Mr. Allen, showed us Sir William Thomson's syphon
recorder, Wheatstone's bridge, and many other beautiful
and intricate instruments in full work. We watched
whilst Mr. Allen located a fault in a deep-sea cable
by means of an instrument which seemed to possess
most uncanny powers.
We arrived at Karachi on March loth at daybreak,
and I found a telegram awaiting me from Mr. Finch,
^ This wise dog was the idol of the ship. Once he went on shore
at Jask with a boat-load of sailors, who forgot him and left him behind
when they returned to the " Sphinx." The ship was anchored nearly
three miles from the shore, but Rags swam out to it, and barked and
barked until he was taken on board.