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.