But there is, I think, a good deal more in these words written on 18th
September than meets the eye:--

"I am on my way to England for reasons partly personal" (I think this
hints at a hope not altogether dead, which had been his close companion
through his two years of absence), "partly connected with the interests of
my Bagdad friends, _and my imagination is in England_."

In his journey through Teheraun and thence to Tabreez, he passed through
the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures there are said to
represent the conquest of Darius Hystaspis.

"Our caravan did not go close enough to see the sculptures; we were
probably half a mile off, but the muleteers were careful to point to them
and talk of them. So too in going from Babylonia into Media by the ancient
pass of Zagros, they were eager to draw my attention to the sculptures in
lofty, apparently inaccessible rocks. 'Your uncle made those,' said a
muleteer. At first I did not understand, but I found he meant by my uncle
some infidel. No true believer, he said, could have done it.... The pass
must be very ancient, and it is by far the noblest work I have seen in
Asia."

The next letter is from Constantinople, 9th April, 1833.

"I am on my way to England, but do not know how long I may stay there." In
his journey from Erzeroom to Scutari, he says he "became a mere animal";
he could only think of his horse's feet and his horse's footing. He never
felt secure, for this reason: that the Tartar's horse, behind whom he
rode, in the "ladder road" [Footnote: A "ladder road" is made by the
horses all following each other in one track, and each trying to step in