Office early.  Saw Captain Hanchett on the subject of the navigation of the Red Sea.  He was there two years and a half.  He says in going in you should make Aden and wait there for a wind.  Water can be had there.  Avoid Mocha, where the anchorage is dangerous and the water bad, and go to the Island of Cameran, then straight up in mid channel.  All the dangers are visible, and in the mid channel there are none.  Cosseir a good little harbour, the danger is going up to Suez; but that easy for a steamer.  He worked with topgallant sails against the north-west monsoon.  There is a breeze along shore at all times.  The danger has been occasioned by the timid sailing of the Arabs, who always hug the shore, and anchor at night.

October 27.

I omitted yesterday to mention that at the Foreign Office I saw some despatches just received from Sir R. Gordon.  I think the date of the first was October 2.  He had the day before at last got the Turks to ratify the treaty, but it seems there was a hitch, and until the ratification the officers did not set off to stop hostilities in Asia.  A Pasha had advanced on Philippopoli and General Geismar on Sophia.  Diebitch threatened to advance on Constantinople.  However, the day after he wrote his threatening letter he must have received the ratifications.  The Sultan is very anxious to get the Egyptian fleet to Constantinople, probably as a pledge for the allegiance of the Pasha, and to show his greatest vassal obeys him.  The Turks say it is the moral effect of the presence of the fleet on their own subjects that they want, that they have no idea of not acting faithfully.  Sir R. Gordon assures me they mean to preserve the peace and must.

He has written the representation the Turkish ambassador is to present to the Emperor.  It would be a good remonstrance for us, but it is not a good one for the Turks.  It is very well written, but it is quite European in its style, and the Russians will at once know, as I did, the author.

The Turks intended to send a splendid embassy to Petersburg, and Halil Pasha, once the slave of the Seraskier, now the Sultan’s son-in-law, was to have been the ambassador.  He is their least officer.  However, Diebitch tells them they must not send it till they have the Emperor’s consent.  The Turks have ready the first 100,000 ducats, to get the Russians out of Adrianople.

I should say from these despatches that things do not look peaceful.

October 28.

Had a letter yesterday from Mr. Elphinstone on Nazarre.  It appears to be a fine on descents, &c., of Jaghire lands.  I think his opinion will be different from Sir J. Malcolm’s—­the latter wishing to make the Jaghires hereditary, or rather to give a fee simple interest to the actual proprietor.  Mr. Elphinstone, on the contrary, thinking they should be resumed on death without heirs.

October 29.

Read a work just published by Colonel de Lacy Evans, on the practicability of a Russian invasion of India.  The route would be first to China, across a desert from the shores of the Caspian—­from China by water up the Oxus, to within 550 miles of Attock.  The great difficulty is between the end of the river, and the southern side of the Hindoo Koosh.  This difficulty, however, has been often surmounted, and the road is constantly travelled by caravans.