Chapter II: Part 2

I state in my travels, that through the interference of the British Embassy, four thousand seven hundred persons, reduced by an arbitrary edict of the king to bondage, were liberated; upon which the critic, full of the "strange stories" which his strange associates had related to him, immediately concludes that Dr Krapf might have had some hand in that transaction. At all events he must contrive to make it appear so, otherwise what would become of his primary thesis, that the Embassy "fell into such disrepute?" Montaigne, the reader will doubtless remember, observes somewhere in his essays, that in order to catch his critics napping, he often put forth the opinions of the greatest writers of antiquity, without making the least allusion to the author, in order that, if these should be turned into ridicule, as was not unlikely, he might show that it was not himself that they had attacked, but Seneca, or Cicero, or Plato. Without having any such intention, I have caught my critic in a similar trap. Believing he could attribute the honour to Dr Krapf, he does not call in question the issuing of the edict or the liberation of the slaves, but inquires knowingly, "had _he_, the missionary, nothing to do with their deliverance?" Next, with a skill which does him much credit, he connects the liberation of the princes with this other transaction, so that if the reader believes his unfounded assertion that it was Dr Krapf, not the Embassy, whose influence prevailed with the king in the one case, he may be led to suppose that it was so in the other. This, it must be acknowledged, is a very ingenious piece of workmanship, and has, I doubt not, earned its author much credit. Nevertheless, it will not bear the touch of examination. The simplest statement of facts in the world will suffice to destroy it, together with the critic's main theory on the subject of my loss of influence at the court of Shoa. Dr Krapf quitted Angollala on the 12th of March, 1842, and during May of the same year, left Massowah for Aden. His active influence, it may fairly be inferred, terminated at this date. The forlorn Embassy was now abandoned to its own resources. There was no one to interest the king in its behalf; no one to perform great and benevolent actions, in order that I might obtain the credit of them. While we were in this state of torpor, the proclamation in question was published by the herald. Before Dr Krapf quitted Massowah? Alas! no. For that event took place in May, whereas the royal edict was only promulgated on the 3rd of August. It was by me, therefore, and not by Dr Krapf, that the remonstrance was forwarded to Sahela Selassie, which produced the liberation of the slaves. This fact is known to every member of the Mission, and it ought to have been within the recollection of some of those infallible authorities who at once supplied the critic with facts and with learning, who remembered for him, understood languages for him, and when need was, invented for him.

The statement that the parents of the four thousand seven hundred individuals liberated, were slaves, is not true. I have said that their fathers were bondsmen, and their mothers free women, and this position I maintain. To the question who delivered the petition, I reply, "my dragoman of course." Upon his boasted maxim of "giving honour to whom honour is due," the conscientious reviewer will doubtless award the sole credit of the success attending this remonstrance, not to myself, but to the party who presented it, and his doing so will be quite as reasonable as the decision that I collected no geographical information, because my assistant. Dr Kirk, was entrusted by me with the department of survey. In equity he ought surely to have taken the case of Dollond into consideration, since _he_ made the satellite glass and the sextant used in determining the longitude of Ankober, upon which every recent addition to the geography of southern Abyssinia is indebted for whatever value it does possess.

Next comes the deliverance of the princes, which took place little more than three months before my return to India. These facts, known to every person in Abyssinia, the correctness of which will be vouched for by every member of the Mission, and the whole particulars of which were laid at the time before the Indian and British governments, may, perhaps, suffice to show in what spirit I have been criticised, and how totally unscrupulous my assailants have been. The gross misstatements disseminated anonymously through some of the public journals, and repeated by the candid reviewer, I have already publicly contradicted with my name. I here also contradict the assertion, that the king remained silent during my sojourn on the frontier. What object the sage reviewer would propose by my going back to take _a second_ leave of His Majesty, when such is the etiquette of no country in the whole world, and my public duties imperatively required my presence at Farri, the reader will be, as I am, at some loss to comprehend.

The treaty concluded with the king of Shoa having now been placed by Parliament before the country, I should have thought it unnecessary to notice the remarks which have been made on that subject, but for one or two considerations connected with it. First, it is said, that the ancient practice of detaining strangers had in usage been previously abolished, and it seems that, notwithstanding the treaty, it was afterwards, in one particular case, revived. Clearly the critic does not perceive the force of his own statements; for if, in spite of the most solemn engagements that a prince can enter into, Sahela Selassie denied a British subject ingress to his country, does it not follow that distinct stipulations on this point were necessary? What does it signify, that practically Sahela Selassie had in many instances permitted Europeans to enter his country? Were they not all, whilst there, legally subject to his caprice, and was it not prudent to endeavour to emancipate them from that caprice? But Sahela Selassie, it is said, shortly violated the treaty, and his act is made the subject of accusation against me. Had I broken it myself, the circumstance would have been somewhat more germane to the matter. At present, all that can be said is, that Sahela Selassie is a novice in European diplomacy.

The case of hardship alluded to, is that of Dr Krapf, who, having quitted Shoa on urgent private business, was denied re-admission. On this subject I might enter into a long explanation, which, because of the peculiarity of my position, could never be complete. I therefore judge it more satisfactory to refer to the testimony of the Church Missionary Society, which, as well as Dr Krapf himself, has put on record its entire satisfaction with my proceedings. If, therefore, the parties most deeply concerned be content because they understand the whole state of the case, I may safely despise the reproaches of a critic who neither knows nor cares any thing about the matter, further than as it may enable him to prejudice me in public opinion.

In every page of the criticism the sophisms and fallacies of which I have undertaken to expose, there is some fresh proof that the reviewer does not see his own way, and that he is perpetually at contradiction with himself. For example, he insists on nothing more incessantly than the all-powerful influence of Dr Krapf over the king of Shoa, to which, he says, the Embassy owed whatever success it met with. No sooner, however, does the missionary quit the precincts of the court, than he is arrested and plundered, evidently, the reviewer insinuates, with the knowledge and connivance of his fast friend Sahela Selassie. What then becomes of his prodigious influence, since it did not suffice for his own protection? But if Dr Krapf was powerless, so likewise, argues the critic, was the Embassy; "for we read of no remonstrances, no applications made to the king on behalf of the missionary, and surely there are no political considerations to restrain communicativeness upon a subject like this." He is perfectly mistaken. For although it may, without compromising any one, be stated that remonstrances were made, there are reasons, and those public ones too, which forbid me to explain why those remonstrances were ineffectual. Had the critic, or his Amharic philosopher, possessed one atom of sagacity, they would have divined those reasons; but as the case is otherwise, I leave them in the darkness which encompasses the whole coterie.

As to my having no right to use information expressly collected for me by the Political Agent at Aden, and by Lieutenant Christopher, in reference to the Eastern Coast, that is really a point upon which the reviewer can hardly be reckoned a competent judge. Lieutenant Barker, like Dr Kirk and the rest of my assistants, was under my orders, and sent with me for the express purpose of taking share, as I might see fit, in the duties allotted to me. The authorities quoted by the reviewer, as having been first in the field with every particular respecting slavery and the slave-trade in Shoa, do not bear out his assertion. Not to go any farther, where does he find the fact, which is rather an important one, that the king claims one out of every ten slaves that pass through his dominions? Like most other points which bear materially upon the subject, this is omitted in the "reports" which are so confidently advanced, in order to throw dust in the eyes of those who will take the Reviewer's word for whatever he has the effrontery to assert.

Next comes the question of the royal arms of Shoa, which I have stated to be the Holy Trinity. Here the critic, as he thinks, has me clearly at disadvantage. He denounces me, accordingly, to be in the wrong, by showing, not what the arms of Shoa are, but what are the arms of the Ethiopic empire; which is exactly the same as if a traveller in Flanders, having described the royal arms of that country, were to be taken to task because the arms of the Austrian Emperor were different. I make a statement on one subject, and he refutes me by making a different statement on a different subject, which is somewhat comic, to say the least of it. But the arms of Abyssinia are, it seems, the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah," to which the Catholic missionaries have added a cross. M. le Grand, in speaking of Abyssinian coronations, says: "The escutcheon is a lion holding a cross, with this motto: _Vicit leo de tribu Judah_." But all this has nothing to do with the king of Shoa, who employs a device of his own, and that device is exactly what I have represented.

The ignorance of the reviewer and his anonymous authorities is again conspicuous in the remarks offered relative to the signet. Why has he not followed the rule he has laid down for my guidance, and "said openly," who these mysterious informants are, in order that, by their calibre, the public might have been enabled to judge whether on any, and on what subject, their opinion or their assertion is likely to be better than my own? As it is, the reader might really be tempted to believe that there existed a penny post in the kingdom of Shoa, and that every subject was in the daily habit of corresponding through it with all his acquaintance. But with exception of a few letters indited by His Majesty, or by the Queen, there are, perhaps, not half a dozen penned during the year, and those are upon scraps of parchment the size of a visiting card, and have neither signature nor superscription, much less device to adorn them. More than ignorance is displayed in the sneers cast upon my ability to use the pencil and the rifle. These qualifications, however incompatible their exercise may be with the dignity to which the critic has been pleased to elevate me, are far from being lightly estimated in Abyssinia; and that foreigner who can neither draw portraits, nor ride, nor slay wild beasts, is not likely to hold a very high place in the estimation of Sahela Selassie, whatever may be thought of him by a learned reviewer.

The speculations indulged in as to the success or failure of my Embassy, are artfully spread over the whole article, a little here and a little there; so that the reader, should a reader be found, must always of necessity have doubts unanswered in his mind. There is some skill in this, and I give the writer credit for it; but though he manages his matter well, the matter itself is good for nothing. He puts himself in the place of the public, and demands certain explanations which I am not permitted to give. Parliament alone has it in its power to satisfy my critic, and to Parliament I refer him. Everybody else will feel that an imperfect explanation would be worse than none at all; a complete one I cannot furnish, though it may hereafter be permitted me to clear up the whole matter, which I am fully able to do.

It appears to me that I have now answered every objection worthy of notice that has been made against my work on Shoa. Not improbably, I shall be thought by some to have been too minute and circumstantial in my reply--to have exposed too seriously misrepresentations originating in ignorance or wanton malice--to have expended argument on that which deserved only contempt. But, respecting the public as I do, I judged it to be incumbent on me completely to disprove the assertion that I had imposed upon it. I trust I have established my own veracity, which I have been far more solicitous to do than to defend the plan adopted in the composition of my narrative. Much more might have been said, to show that the truth is neither in the reviewer, nor his "private informants," but it is not worth my while to trouble myself further with such people. The public, I am convinced, will agree with me in thinking that I have left no just cause for cavil, and if, therefore, the system of abuse should be persevered in, it can only be because I happen to have enemies who will make a point of pursuing me as long as I am above ground, and perhaps much longer. I wish they could discover some better and more profitable employment, and with that wish I leave them.

W.C. Harris.

_London, March_ 31, 1844.

Extract of Instructions Addressed by the Secretary to the Government of Bombay to Captain W.C. Harris.

Bombay Castle, 24th April, 1841.

Sir,

I am directed to inform you, that the Honourable the Governor in Council having formed a very high estimate of your talents and acquirements, and of the spirit of enterprise and decision, united with prudence and discretion, exhibited in your recently published Travels "through the territories of the chief Moselekatse to the tropic of Capricorn," has been pleased to select you to conduct a Mission which the British Government has resolved to send to Sahela Selassie, the King of Shoa in Southern Abyssinia, whose capital, Ankober, is computed to be about four hundred miles inland from the port of Tajura on the African coast.

The Mission will be conveyed to Aden in the Honourable Company's steam frigate Auckland, now under orders to leave Bombay on the 27th instant; and it has been arranged that one of the Honourable Company's vessels of war, at present in the Red Sea, shall be in readiness to convey the Mission thence to Tajura, at which latter place it should immediately disembark, and commence its journey to Ankober.

(Signed) J.P. Willoughby, Secretary to Government.

To Captain W.C. Harris, Corps of Engineers.

The Embassy was thus Composed:

Captain W.C. Harris, Bombay Engineers.

Captain Douglas Graham, Bombay Army. Principal Assistant.

Assistant-Surgeon Rupert Kirk, Bombay Medical Service.

Dr J.R. Roth, Natural Historian.

Lieutenant Sydney Horton, H.M. 49th Foot,--as a Volunteer.

Lieutenant W.C. Barker, Indian Navy.

Assistant-Surgeon Impey, Bombay Medical Service.

Mr Martin Bernatz, Artist.

Mr Robert Scott, Surveyor and Draftsman.

Mr J. Hatchatoor, British Agent at Tajura.

Escort and Establishment:--

Two sergeants and fifteen rank and file; volunteers from H.M. 6th Foot, and from the Bombay Artillery.

An Assistant Apothecary.

Carpenter.

Smith.

Two Tent Lascars.

INTRODUCTION.

Written in the heart of Abyssinia, amidst manifold interruptions and disadvantages, the following pages will, in many respects, be found imperfect. Their chief recommendation must be sought in the fact of their embodying a detail of efforts zealously directed, under the auspices of a liberal Government, towards the establishment of a more intimate connexion with a Christian people, who know even less of the world than the world knows of them,--towards the extension of the bounds of geographical and scientific knowledge, the advancement of the best interests of commerce, and the amelioration of the lot of some of the least favoured portions of the human race.

An obvious necessity for the introduction of the foregoing extract from his instructions will exonerate the Author from an intention to appropriate as his due the very gratifying encomium passed upon his previous exertions in Southern Africa. As a public servant, the freedom of his pen has now in some measure been curtailed; but his official position and resources, added to the able assistance placed at his command, have, on the other hand, extended more than commensurate advantages.

To Captain Douglas Graham, his accomplished and early friend, and principal assistant, he acknowledges himself most especially indebted, for the aid of a head and of a pen, such as are not often to be found united.

The exertions of Assistant-Surgeon Kirk alleviated incalculable human suffering; and his perseverance, although long opposed by an unfavourable climate, carried through a series of magnetic and astronomical observations of the highest importance to Abyssinian geography.

An indefatigable devotion to the cause of science, added to the experience gained during previous wanderings in Palestine, eminently adapted the learned Dr Roth to discharge the arduous functions of natural historian to the Mission; and the splendid collection realised, together with the researches embodied in the various appendices to these volumes, will afford the fullest evidence of his industry and success.

To all who were associated with himself, in view to the better attainment of the objects contemplated, the Author here offers his warm acknowledgments for the cheerfulness displayed under trials and privations. Of the able assistance of some he was unavoidably deprived during an early period of the service. The disappointment thus involved in his own person has been fully equal to that experienced by themselves; but they must be sensible that their hardships have not been undergone in vain, and that they too have accomplished their share in the undertaking, so far as fortune permitted.

To the Reverend Dr Krapf the thanks of Government have already been conveyed, for the valuable co-operation derived from his extended acquaintance with the languages of Abyssinia. But the Author gladly avails himself of this opportunity publicly to record his personal sense of obligation to the active and pious Missionary of the Church of England, whose kindness from the first arrival of the Embassy on the frontiers of Shoa, to the date of his own departure for Cairo, was unremitting.

By no tribute of his own could the writer of these volumes extend the well-deserved reputation of McQueen's Geographical Survey. It will nevertheless be satisfactory to one who takes rank among the foremost benefactors of the oppressed "children of the sun," to receive the additional testimony which is due to the undeviating accuracy of theories and conclusions founded upon years of patient and honest investigation; and this the Author unhesitatingly records, in so far as the north-eastern portions of Africa have come within the observation of the Embassy which he has the honour to conduct.

_Ankober, 1st January_, 1843.

POSTSCRIPTUM.

The length of time that has unavoidably elapsed between the preparation and the appearance of these volumes, needs no apology, neither is it proposed to offer any for their termination in the country of which they treat, and wherein they were written. But the work must not now be suffered to go forth without the expression of the Author's gratitude for the assistance derived during its progress through the press, from the talents and literary taste of his friend Major Franklin Lushington, C.B.

Volume One, Chapter I.

DEPARTURE OF THE BRITISH EMBASSY FROM THE SHORES OF INDIA.

It was late on the afternoon of a sultry day in April, which had been passed amid active preparations, when a dark column of smoke, streaming over the tall shipping in the crowded harbour of Bombay, proclaimed the necessity of a hurried adieu to a concourse of friends who still thronged the deck; and scarcely was the last wish for success expressed to the parties that had embarked, before the paddles performed their first revolution, and the Honourable East India Company's steam frigate "Auckland," bound upon her maiden voyage, shot through the still blue water.

A turbaned multitude of manifold religions had lined the pier and the ramparts of the saluting battery, to pay a parting tribute of respect to their late governor. Sir James Rivett Carnac, who, with his lady and family, was now returning to his native land. On board also were the officers and gentlemen composing an Embassy organised under instructions by the government of India. More than a fortnight had been diligently passed in the equipment of this mission; but its objects, no less than the destination of its innumerable bales and boxes, still served as puzzles to public curiosity; and many a sapient conjecture on the subject was doubtless launched after the bounding frigate as she disappeared amid the haze of the closing day.

Immortal Watt! sordid is the man who places his foot behind the Titanic engines which owe their birth to thee, and who would withhold, as an offering to the altar of thy memory, a mite, according to his worldly means, wherewith to erect a fabric colossal as the power enthralled by thy transcendent genius! Strange are the revolutions undergone in affairs nautical since the introduction of the marine steam-engine upon the Indian seas. The creaking of yards has given place to the coughing and sobbing of machinery, as it heaves in convulsive throes. Tacking and wearing have become terms obsolete, and through the clang of the fire-doors, and the ceaseless stroke of paddle-wheels, the voice of the pilot is rarely heard, save in conjunction with "Stop her," or "Turn a-head."

Marked by a broad ploughed wake, the undeviating course pursued through the trackless main was demonstrated midway of the voyage by a tall pillar of smoke from the funnel of the "Cleopatra," rising against the clear hot horizon, like a genie liberated from his sealed bottle, to proclaim the advent of the English mails. The deep blue sea was glassy smooth. Each passing zephyr set from Araby's shores; but, heedless alike of wind and opposing current, the good ship steadily pursued her arrow-like flight,--passed the bold outline of Socotra, redolent of spicy odours,--and before sunset of the ninth day was within sight of her destined haven, one thousand six hundred and eighty miles from the port she had left.

Cape Aden was the bold promontory in view, and it had borrowed an aspect even more sombre and dismal from a canopy of heavy clouds which stole across the naked and shattered peaks, to invest the castle-capped mountain with a funereal shroud. Crossed by horizontal ledges, and seamed with gaps and fissures, Jebel Shemshan rears its turreted crags nearly eighteen hundred feet above the ocean, into which dip numerous bare and rugged buttresses, of width only sufficient to afford footing to a cony, and each terminating in a bluff inaccessible scarp. Sand and shingle strew the cheerless valleys by which these spurs are divided, and save where a stunted balsam, or a sallow clump of senna, has struggled through the gaping fissure, hollow as well as hill is destitute of even the semblance of vegetation.

"How hideously
Its shapes are heap'd around, rude, bare, and high.
Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven! Is this the scene
Where the old earthquake's demon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys?--or did a sea
Of fire envelope once this dismal cape?"

Rounding the stern peninsula, within stone's cast of the frowning headlands, the magnificent western bay developed its broad expanse as the evening closed. Here, with colliers and merchantmen, were riding the vessels of war composing the Red Sea squadron. Among the isolated denizens of British Arabia, the unexpected arrival of a steam frigate created no small sensation. Exiles on a barren and dreary soil, which is precluded from all intercourse with the fruitful, but barbarous interior, there is nothing to alleviate a positive imprisonment, save the periodical flying visits of the packets that pass and repass betwixt Suez and Bombay. In the dead of night the sudden glare of a blue light in the offing is answered by the illumination of the blockship, heretofore veiled behind a curtain of darkness. The double thunder of artillery next peals from her decks; and as the labouring of paddle-wheels, at first faint and distant, and heard only at broken intervals, comes booming more heavily over the still waters, the spectral lantern at the mast-head is followed by a red glow under the stem, as the witch, buffeting a cascade of snowy spray, vibrates to every stroke of the engine, and leaving a phosphoric train to mark her even course, glides, hissing and boiling, towards her anchorage. Warped alongside the blockship, the dingy hulls lean over like affectionate sisters that have been long parted; and, flinging their arms together, remain fast locked in each other's embrace.

And who are these swart children of the sun, that, like a May-day band of chimney-sweeps, are springing with wild whoops and yells over the bulwarks of the new arrival? 'tis a gang of brawny Seedies, enfranchised negroes from the coast of Zanzibar, whose pleasure consists in the transhipment of yonder mountain of coal, lying heaped in tons upon the groaning deck. To the dissonant tones of a rude tambourine, thumped with the thighbone of a calf, their labour has already commenced. Increasing the vehemence of their savage dance, they heave the ponderous sacks like giants busied at pitch and toss, and begrimed from head to foot, roll at intervals upon the blackened planks, to stanch the streaming perspiration. Thus stamping and howling with increased fury, while the harsh notes of the drum peal louder and louder to the deafening vehemence of the frantic musician, they pursue their task, night as well as day, amid clamour and fiendish vociferations, such as might suggest the idea of furies engaged in unearthly orgies. In the first burst of their revelry, the spectator is happy to escape from the suffocating atmosphere of impalpable coal-dust; and rarely does it happen that for every hundred tons of fuel received, fewer than one life is forfeited by the actors in the wild scene described--some doomed victim, swollen with copious draughts, and exhausted by the frenzy of excitement, invariably casting himself down when his Herculean task is done, to rally and rise up no more.

Volume One, Chapter II.

DISEMBARKATION AT CAPE ADEN.

Quitting the boisterous deck of the steamer, and pulling towards the shores of Arabia, a cluster of barren rocks, which might fitly be likened to heaps of fused coal out of a glass furnace, present an appearance very far from inviting or prepossessing. They are little relieved by a few straggling cadjan buildings, temporarily occupied by those whose avocations enable them, during the summer months, to fly the intolerable heat of the oven-like town. But under the roof of Captain Stafford Haines, who fills the honourable and responsible post of Political Agent, there awaited the embassy, on its landing, a hospitality of no ordinary stamp. It literally knew no bounds, and could not fail to obliterate at once any unfavourable first impression arising out of the desolate aspect bestowed by Dame Nature upon "Steamer Point."

A volunteer escort of European artillerymen was yet to be obtained from the garrison of Aden; horses, too, were to be purchased, and sundry other indispensable preparations made for the coming journey into the interior of Africa. During a full week there seemed no termination to the influx of bags containing dates, rice, and juwarree, and scarcely a shorter period was occupied in the selection from the government treasury of many thousand star-dollars of the reign of Maria Theresa, displaying, each in its turn, all the multifarious marks and tokens most esteemed by the capricious savage. Neither was the bustle one whit diminished by the remote position of the town, which, unless through the kindness of friends, is only to be attained on the back of one of the many diminutive donkeys stationed along the beach for the convenience of the stranger. Encumbered with a straw-stuffed pack-saddle far exceeding its own dimensions, the wretched quadruped is zealously bastinadoed into a painful amble by the heavy club of some juvenile Israelite with flowing auburn ringlets, whose chubby freckled cheeks, influenced by the sultry sun no less than by the incessant manual labour employed, are wont to assume a strangely excited appearance ere the journey be at an end.

Along the entire coast of Southern Arabia, there is not a more remarkable feature than the lofty promontory of Aden, which has been flung up from the bed of the ocean, and in its formation is altogether volcanic. The Arab historian [Masudi] of the tenth century, after speaking of the volcanoes of Sicily and in the kingdom of the Maha Raj, alludes to it as existing in the desert of Barhut, adjacent to the province of Nasafan and Hadramaut, in the country of Shaher. "Its sound, like the rumbling of thunder, might then be heard many miles, and from its entrails were vomited forth red-hot stones with a flood of liquid fire." The skeleton of the long-exhausted crater, once, in all probability, a nearly perfect circle, now exhibits a horse-shoe-shaped crescent, hemmed in by splintered crags, which, viewed from the turreted summit of Jebel Shemshan especially, whence the eye ranges over the entire peninsula, presents the wildest chaos of rock, ruin, and desolation.

From the landing-place at Ras Marbut, a tortuous track of five miles conducts past the coal-depot and Seedie location, along various curvatures of the arid coast, to the cantonment and town of Aden. "Sublime in barrenness," the rugged and lofty cliffs pile themselves upward in masses of the most fantastic shape, now bare and bald, shooting into perpendicular spires, and now leaning over the caravan of heavily-laden camels that toil along the path. The sunshine of perpetual summer reigns throughout the scene. Glittering sand-hills slumber in breezy dimness around the land-locked harbour, and over the faint peaks of Yemen's distant mountains the unclouded sky floats bright and blue. The sparkling waters leap against the dark base of the naked islets; but the wide glassy surface beyond, reposing like a broad lake, is only ruffled by the circling eddy which follows the sportive plash of the bottle-nosed porpoise, or the pluming of a fleet of silver-winged terns, riding quietly at anchor on its tranquil bosom. As the road retires from the beach, the honey-combed cliff's assume the similitude of massive wads and battlements, every where pierced with loopholes and embrasures. A gradual ascent leads through a craggy portal, bristling with cannon, and guarded by the pacing sentinel. One narrow rift in the solid rock, to the foot of which the sun rarely penetrates, forms an abrupt division in the chain, and beyond it the eye suddenly embraces the basin-like valley wherein stands the decayed capital of Arabia Felix.

"Aden," saith old Ibn Batuta of Tangiers, "is situate upon the sea-shore--a large city, without either seed, water, or tree." Five hundred years have elapsed since this graphic account was penned, and the vegetation has in nowise improved. An amphitheatre of dimensions sufficient for the Devil's punch-bowl is formed by two volcanic ranges, once in connection, but obviously rent asunder, heaved outwards, and canted in opposite directions by some violent eruption that has forced an opening to the ocean. A sterility which is not to be surpassed invests the scene with an aspect most repulsive and forbidding. No tree varies the dreary prospect, no shrub relieves the eye, not even a flower lends its aid to enliven the wild and gloomy hollow, the fittest refuge that the imagination could picture for the lawless and the desperate. Fortifications are to be traced on every point either liable to assault or eligible for defence: ruined castles and watch-towers perched on the highest elevations of the precipitous hills stand the now inaccessible guardians of other days; and even the limited view to seaward, where the passing white sail of a small coasting craft, or the catamaran of the amphibious fisherman may occasionally be seen, is partially screened by a triangular rock, which frowns like a great spectre over the inner harbour. Seerah, "the fortified black islet," is said to have been the residence of Cain, "the first born of a woman," after the murder of his brother Abel; and, verily, it would be difficult to devise a more appropriate exile for the banished fratricide. Hurled into the sea by a convulsive shock, it is surrounded by pumice and by currents of obsidian, the products of volcanic emission, strewed among vast undulating waves of cavernous lava, or mingled with black masses of porous rock, which bear evidence of fusion, and yield to the touch a metallic sound.

Sterility has indeed claimed this dreary region as her own; and even in the more productive portions of the peninsula, little verdure is derived from the almost leafless Besham, the _Balsamodendron Opobalsamum_, a dwarf shrub, which, according to the Arab tradition, formed a part of the present carried to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba from the aromatic regions of myrrh and frankincense. Where incisions are made in its stem, the far-famed Balm of Mecca flows copiously, but the volatile oil quickly evaporating, leaves a tasteless insipid gum. Nursed by no periodical shower and by no hidden spring, the precious plant, scorched by a withering blast, derives its only moisture from the mists which envelope the mountain-top, when all is sunshine below.

Among the most singular features of the Cape is the supply of water, which is found only in the valley of Aden, close under the cliffs, and at the openings of the fissures from the steppes above. Here, piercing to a great depth through the solid rock, are upwards of one hundred wells; many dilapidated and choked up, but others yielding an abundant and unfailing supply. Whence or in what manner they are fed it is extremely difficult to conjecture. All near the beach are bad, and more or less brackish; some are sensibly affected by the tides, and very saline; whilst of those which afford sweet water, one only is visibly acted upon by some lower spring. It is excavated at the entrance of a dark gorge rent by some violent convulsion in the rugged bosom of Shemshan, and the surface, which is in a state of constant commotion, remains at the same level, although daily drawn upon from morning till night for the supply of thousands.

The almost total absence of the vegetable kingdom considered, it is not surprising that there should exist also a palpable deficiency in the animal creation. In perhaps no other quarter of the universe are the sparrow and the crow such perfect strangers. The pigeon, the fox, and the rat, divide the sovereignty of the rocky cleft; and the serrated heights are held without a rival by a garrison of monkeys. With these long-tailed occupants of the tower-capped pinnacles are connected wondrous superstitions, and an Aden tradition, extant throughout Southern Arabia, would exalt them into the remnant of the once-powerful tribe of Ad, "a people great, and strong, and tall," who are believed to have been metamorphosed into apes, in token of the displeasure of Heaven, when Sheddad, "the king of the world," illustrious in the annals of the East, impiously sought, in defiance of the prophet Hud, to create unto himself a garden which should rival the Celestial Paradise. The Bostan el Irem, with its gorgeous palaces and shining domes, the similitude whereof had never been constructed on the regions of the earth, is said to be yet standing in the solitary deserts of Aden, although miraculously concealed from mortal ken. Within the silent walls of its lofty towers did Abdallah ibn Aboo Kelaba pass his night of wonder during the reign of Moawiyeh, Prince of the Faithful; and it is believed by every good Moslem that this marvellous fabric of human skill and impiety, which finds a record in the sacred Koran, will endure until the Last Day, an imperishable, but rarely revealed monument of Divine retribution.

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Note 1. Lieutenant J.C. Cruttenden, assistant to the Political Agent at Aden, heard the same version repeated at Saana, the capital of Yemen, which far-famed city he has been the first European to visit, since the days of Niebuhr.

Volume One, Chapter III.

A STROLL THROUGH THE INFANT METROPOLIS OF BRITISH ARABIA.

A uniform system of architecture pervades the houses of Aden, nearly all of which would appear to have arisen out of the ruins of former more extensive edifices, now buried far below the surface of the accumulated soil. Tiers of loose undressed stone are interlaid, instead of mortar, with horizontal bands of timber; the walls thus traversed being perforated with pigeon-holes to serve as windows, and surmounted by a low parapet concealing the terraced roof. Many, occupied by the more wealthy, have attained to a third story; but nearly all are destitute of ornament. This is now restricted to the decayed palace of the sultans of Yemen, where

"In proud state
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,
Doing his evil will."

In the thick coating of cement with which the shattered edifice is still partially encrusted, are the remains of various raised devices; and a profusion of open fretwork in wood is still observable, interspersed with latticed cornices, comprising choice sentences from the Koran.

The shops of Parsee and Mohammadan merchants already extend an assortment of European commodities to the notice of the visitor; and in a bazaar, infested like other fish-markets by a legion of cats, are exposed sharks and a variety of the finny tribe. Water from the sweetest well is hawked about in dirty skins, instead of the lemonade and sherbet of large oriental towns; and piles of fruit, drugs, dates, molasses, and other abominations, present the same amount of flies, and no abatement of the compound of villainous smells, by which the booth of the shrewd and avaricious Gentoo is so invariably distinguished.

In the suburbs, the frail cadjan wigwam of the Arab and Somauli population impart the undeviating aspect of the portable encampment of the nomade hordes. The tattered goat-hair awning of the bare-footed pilgrim to the shrine at El Medina is here; and low crazy cabins of matting or yellow reeds are so slenderly covered in with the leaves of the palm as to form but a scanty shelter against the intolerable heat and dust occasioned by periodical blasts of the fiery Shimal.

During his diurnal reign, the sun has shone fiercely over the extinct crater of Aden, and the relentless shower of dust and pebbles has kept the inhabitants within their rude dwellings. But as the declining rays cast a lengthened shadow across the narrow alleys, and the hot puffs, abating in violence, are succeeded by a suffocating calm, the hitherto torpid population is to be seen abroad. That bronzed and sun-burnt visage, surrounded by long matted locks of raven hair--that slender, but wiry and active frame--and that energetic gait and manner, proclaim the untameable descendant of Ishmael. He nimbly mounts the crupper of his now unladen dromedary, and at a trot moves down the bazaar on his way back to the town of Lahedge. A checked kerchief around his brows, and a kilt of dark blue calico about his loins, comprise his slender costume. His arms have been deposited outside the Turkish wall, which stretches its barrier across the isthmus from sea to sea, where flying parties of the Foudthli still infest the plain; and as he looks back, his meagre ferocious aspect, flanked by that tangled web of hair, stamps him the roving tenant of the desert.

The Arab has changed neither his character nor his habits since the days of the patriarchs, and he affords a standing evidence of the truth of the scriptural prophecy. He regards with disdain and with proud indifference every other portion of mankind, for who can produce so ancient monuments of liberty as he who, with little intermission, has preserved it from the very Deluge? Is the land of his ancestors invaded? A branch torn by the priest from the venerated _Nebek_ [A tree bearing a fruit like the Siberian crab], having been thrust into the fire, is quenched in hot blood welling from the divided throat of a ram which has only the moment before been slaughtered in the name of God the one omnipotent. Dripping with the crimson tide, the emblem is solemnly delivered to the nearest warrior, who hies him forth with this his summons for the gathering of the wild dans. Down from their rocky fastnesses pour the old and the young, the untried stripling, and the stern veteran with a thousand scars. On, on speeds the messenger with the alarum of coming strife. Transferred from hand to hand, it rests not in the grasp of any; and in a few brief hours, thousands of wild spirits, calling upon Allah for victory, and thirsting for the blood of the foe, have mustered around the unfurled standard of their prophet.

Thus it was that the numerous hill-forts and strongholds studding the rich province of Assyr, which borders on the Holy Land of the Moslem, last poured forth their hordes to meet the invader of her fair plains, and the despoiler of her countless flocks. Sixteen thousand warriors, composing one of the most ancient as well as bravest of the Arab tribes, cast aside spear and falchion, and, armed only with the deadly creese, stole during the night upon the camp of the insatiate Egyptian, and slaughtering the greater number, drove Ibrahim Pacha, with the wreck of his army, to seek safety in precipitate flight to Hodeida.

In yonder fat and sensual money-changer from the city of Surat is presented the very antipodes to the posterity of Hagar. In drowsy indolence, see him emerge from his treasures of ghee and groceries, among which, scales in hand, he has been patiently squatted since earliest dawn at the terrace of his booth, registering his gains in the daily ledger. Not one spark of animation is there. A dark slouching turban, and ample folds of snowy drapery, envelope the sleek person of the crafty Hindoo, and his lethargic motions render it difficult to comprehend how he should have contrived to exile himself from his native soil, and in such a forbidding spot, even in pursuit of his idol, Mammon.

Ajan and Berbera, famous for their early connection with the Greek kings of Egypt, have both contributed largely to the population that now throngs the street. The regular and finely-turned features of those Somauli emigrants from the opposite coast are at once selected from the group, although some have disguised their hair under a thick plaster of quick-lime, and others are rendered hideous by a wig of fiery red curls; whilst the dyed ringlets of a third have faded to the complexion of a housemaid's mop, and a fourth, forsooth, is shaven because his locks have been pulled in anger. [It is the practice of the Somauli to shave the head when thus insulted, and to make a vow that the hair shall not grow again until they have had their revenge.] All present a curious contrast to the jet black skin and woolly pate of the Suhaili, who, in his turn, is destitute of the thick pouting lip which adorns that stalwart Nubian, swaggering like a great bully by his side. At the door of those cadjan cabins, which resemble higglers crates, not less in size than in form and appearance, groups of withered Somauli crones are diligently weaving mats, baskets, and fans, of the pliant date-leaf; and their laughing daughters, yon tall, slim, and erect damsels with the earthen pitchers above their plaited tresses, present, on their way up from the well, some of the comeliest specimens of the ebon race.

"Honesty," saith the Arab proverb, "is found only amongst poor fools." The Bedouin has for ages been celebrated for his ingenuity and daring, and the African offset is nothing behind the parent stock. A Somauli thief is perhaps "the cunningest knave in the universe." He has been known to cut away a pile of tobacco so as to leave to the merchant who reposed thereon, naught but the effigy of his own figure: and after entering through the roof of a house, the burglar has taken his exit through the door with chests of treasure, from the top of which the sleeping proprietor has been first hoisted, with his bed, by a tackle lowered through the aperture, and so left hanging until the morning!

Muffled in a Spanish mantilla, see the spouse of the bigoted Islam taking the air upon the crupper of a donkey, her fat face so scrupulously concealed, that nothing of it is visible save two sloe black eyes which glitter through perforations in the white veil, and impart a similitude to the horned owl. On the rude steps of the clustering habitations that she has passed, surrounded by rosy-cheeked urchins, are seated numerous dark-eyed and well-dressed Jewesses. Rachel, although discreet, and preserving the strictest decorum, is unveiled. Were it possible to prevail upon her to have recourse to daily ablution, in lieu of the hebdomadal immersion which celebrates her sabbath eve, her complexion would not be less fair than that of the native of Southern Europe; and in the well-chiselled features and aquiline profile of the brunette, are preserved all those marked peculiarities which in every part of the world distinguish the scattered daughters of Israel.

The children of the tribe of Judah are most completely identified with the soil of Aden, and may be regarded as the artisans and manufacturing population. Victims heretofore of the tyranny and intolerant persecution which the infidel has ever to expect at the hand of the true believer, they toiled and accumulated, but feared lest a display of the fruits of their labour should excite the cupidity of a rapacious master. Now their prospect has brightened, and the remnant of a mighty though fallen and dispersed people, no longer exists here in poverty and oppression, insulted and despised as they have always been in every part of the Eastern world; but in uninterrupted security ply their industrious occupation, and under British protection fearlessly practise those rites which have been religiously preserved from the time that their priests bore aloft the ark of the covenant. Stone slabs with Hebrew inscriptions mark the resting-place of the departed; schools witness the education of the rising generation; and men and women, arrayed in their holiday apparel, sit apart in the synagogue, to listen at each return of their sabbath to the law which had been read since "by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea" their fathers "went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt."

Volume One, Chapter IV.

THE GIBRALTAR OF THE EAST.

Aden, in its history and reverses, presents the type of many a mighty nation,--it flourished and has fallen. As it once stood, it was the maritime bulwark of Arabia Felix. So early as the reign of Constantine the Great, it was celebrated for its impregnable fortifications, its extended traffic, and its attractive ports. Here the camels of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics. Here commerce first dawned; and little more than two centuries and a half have rolled away since the decayed city ranked among the most opulent emporia of the East. Its decline is only dated from the close of the illustrious reign of Suleiman the Magnificent; but the spider has since "weaved her web in the imperial palace, and the owl has stood sentinel upon the watch-tower."

In the eyes of the true believer, the Cape is hallowed by the tradition that it was honoured with the preaching in person of that arch impostor, "the last of all the prophets," who, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, became the lawgiver of the Arabians, and the founder of an empire which in less than a century had spread itself from the Pyrenees to the Indus. Three hundred and sixty mosques once reared their proud heads, and eighty thousand inhabitants poured into the field, an army which accomplished the subjugation of El Yemen. This latter, famous from all antiquity for the happiness of its climate, its fertility and surpassing riches, became an independent kingdom at the period that Constantinople fell into the hands of Mahomet the Second. Aden frequently cast off its allegiance; and when the Turks, by means of their fleet built at Suez, rendered themselves masters of the northern coast of the Red Sea, they found the peninsula independent, under the Sultan of Foudthli. Turkey and Portugal, struggling for supremacy in the East, hotly contested its possession; but, being unable longer to maintain their rivalry, it finally reverted into the grasp of its ancient masters.

Great natural strength, improved by the substantial fortifications which had been carried by Sultan Selim completely round the zone of hills that engirds the town, now rendered it the fittest of all retreats for the piratical hordes of the desert; and the lawless sons of Ishmael, scouring the adjacent waters, loaded their stronghold with booty. But after the loss of government, Aden could not be expected to retain its opulence. Its trade passed into the rival port of Mocha, and grinding oppression caused the removal of the wealthy. At the period of the British occupation, ninety dilapidated houses, giving shelter to six hundred impoverished souls, were all that remained to attest its ancient glories. The town lay spread out in ruin and desolation, and heaps of stone, mingled with bricks and rubbish, sternly pointed to the grave of the mosque and tall minaret.

Few fragments now survive the general decay, to record the high estate of the once populous metropolis, or reveal the magnificence it could formerly boast in works of public utility. The chief buildings are believed to have been situated ten miles inland, and to have been swallowed up by the ever rising, never ebbing, tide of the desert. The red brick conduit of Abd el Wahab can still be traced from the Durab el Horaibi, whence it stretches to Bir Omheit, upwards of eight miles, across a now dilapidated bridge. Here are numerous wells, which supplied the reservoirs; but, "like the baseless fabric of a vision," every vestige of an edifice has vanished.

Among the most perfect and conspicuous relics of the past are the laborious and costly means adopted to insure in so arid and burning a climate, a plentiful supply of water. In addition to the wells, three hundred in number, the remains of basins of great magnitude are found in various directions; and in the Valley of Tanks are a succession of hanging cisterns, formed by excavations in the limestone rock. These are lined with flights of steps, and supported by lofty buttresses of imperishable masonry, forming deep reservoirs of semi-elliptical form, which still blockade every channel in the mountain side, and once served to collect the precious drops from heaven, when showers doubtless fell more abundantly than at the present day.

In the extensive repositories for the dead, too, may be found assurances of the former population of Aden. Many of the countless tombs in the Turkish cemetery were of white marble, and bore on jasper tablets elaborately-sculptured inscriptions surmounted by the cap and turban; but the greater number of these pillared monuments have either disappeared or been overthrown. Of the evidences of Mohammadanism that once graced the city, nearly all lie buried from sight beneath heaps of accumulated rubbish and debris, the removal of portions of which has disclosed many curious coins of remote date. The minaret of Menaleh, and a tottering octagon of red brick, attached to the Jama el Musjid, lone survivors of the wreck, still point to the sky; and of the few mosques that have been spared by the destroying hand of time, the principal is that of the tutelar saint of the city, beneath the cupola of which, invested with a pall of crimson silk, and enshrined in the odour of sanctity, repose the venerated remains of Sheikh Hydroos.