Transcribe Ward, Henry A. Letter to Brooks, Lewis (1877-02-06)

Suakin the port of Nubia and </u Mopowah > the port of Abyssinia, </s the New Faction latter quite at the lower (southern) land of the Red > Wherever I return by same steamer the whole length of the Red Sea to Suez at its northern end and, crossing to Cairo and Alexandria, sail for Europe and America. I hope to reach home by the middle of April. You will note that my present trip is a great change and curtailing of my original plan. </s and trip > My reason for the change is </s a > the </u lack of time > to carry out the first plan. </s I finished my > As I mentioned to you in a previous letter, my most certain and important collecting ground, for all departments of the Virginia Cabinet were to be had in Europe, from localities and dealers with whom I had long been conversant. I worked steadily and patiently at my programme, or list of needed specimens, until I reached the southern part of Europe (Trepina in Sicily) about three weeks ago. When I saw that it would be quite impossible for me to go to India - to really do anything there - and to get back at to </s Rochester > America at the time that my Virginia Cabinet imperatively </u requires > me there. So I decided to cross the Mediteraneum, spend a fortnight in Egypt and a month on the Red Sea - at good collecting points, - and then return direct home, This is an </u intense > disappointment to me, and in some respects a mortification. I have dreamed for years of the ^pleasure of the^ Indian portion of this trip and deemed it, too, of the greatest importance to my business interests