ADEN
Leaving the Red Sea at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, we came to Aden,
Arabia, and thence went on down along the coast of the Indian Ocean to
Mombasa. The very best of our Mocha coffee is shipped from Aden to the
United States. It comes here on camels from the province of Yemen, where
it is raised by the natives, each family having a few bushes about its
hut and producing only enough for home use and a little for trading.
There are no big plantations and no coffee factories. When ripe the
berries are gathered and dried in the sun. After this they are put up in
bales, and carried on camelback over the hills to this place. They are
then hulled between millstones turned by hand, and winnowed and sorted
for shipment. The latter work is done by the women, who look over each
grain carefully, taking out the bad ones. Labour is cheap, but the coffee
has to go through many hands. It has to pay toll to the chiefs of the
tribes who own the country through which it is carried, so it must be
sold at high prices. For this reason we have imitations of Mocha coffee
from all parts of the world.
For many years this port of Aden has belonged to John Bull, who took
possession of it in 1839, and later got hold of the island of Perim in
the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb also. That island is about a hundred miles
from Aden and the two places practically control the entrance to the
Red Sea and the Suez Canal. As for Aden, it is the Gibraltar of this
part of the world, as well as one of the greatest of the British coaling
stations. The harbour is excellent, and the outer entrance is more than
three miles wide. The inner waters have been dredged so that steamers of
twenty-six feet draft can go everywhere, and there is room enough for all
the vessels that pass through the canal to anchor here at one time.
Aden is strongly fortified. The town, which stands on a volcanic isthmus,
is guarded by a broad ditch cut out of the solid rock. It has a garrison
of several thousand soldiers, guns of the latest pattern, and no one
knows how many submarine mines and other defences against attack.
But no matter what its military importance, Aden is the sorriest city I
have ever seen. There is nothing like it except Iquique on the nitrate
coast of South America, and Iquique is a paradise compared with Aden.
Imagine a great harbour of sea-green water, the shores of which rise
almost abruptly into ragged mountains of brown rock and white sand.
There is not a blade of grass to be seen, there are no trees, and even
the cactus and sage brush of our American desert are absent. The town is
without vegetation. It is as bare as the bones of the dead camels in the
sandy waste behind it, and its tropical sun beats down out of a cloudless
African sky. Everything is gray or a dazzling white. The houses on the
sides of the hills are white, the rocks throw back the rays of the sun,
and the huts upon their sides are of the same gray colour as themselves.
[Illustration: Each year thousands of Moslems from North and East Africa
make the pilgrimage to this city of Mecca. They worship at the shrines
sacred to Islam, chief among which is the Kaaba, containing the Holy
Rock.]
[Illustration: Aden is in the land of the camel, and processions of them
come into the city every day, bringing coffee and gums. Eighteen miles is
a day’s journey for the average freight animal, but those used for riding
go much farther.]
The city looks thirsty and dry. It is dry. There is only a well or so
in the place, and these, I am told, the English bought of their owners
for something like one million dollars. Almost all of the water used is
condensed from the sea, and fresh water always brings a big price. There
are no streams anywhere for miles around. The town is situated in the
crater of an extinct volcano, and there is one great depression near by
in which some famous stone tanks were made a thousand or so years ago.
These tanks are so big that if they were cleaned out they might hold
thirty million gallons of water. The water is caught when it rains, and
is sometimes auctioned off to the highest bidder. The receipts go to the
British Government, to which a good rain may bring in fifteen or twenty
thousand dollars or more.
This is my second visit to Aden. My first was sixteen years ago when I
stopped here on my way around the world. I do not see that the town has
changed and I doubt whether it has any more people than it had then.
The population is made up of all the nations and tribes common to the
Indian Ocean. It contains Arabs, Africans, Jews, Portuguese, and East
Indians. There are about four thousand Europeans, including merchants,
officials, and soldiers. The majority of the people are Arabs and the
prevailing colour is black. There are tall, lean, skinny black Bedouins
from interior Arabia, who believe in the Prophet, and go through their
prayers five times a day. There are black Mohammedans from Somaliland and
black Christians from Abyssinia. In addition there are Parsees, Hindus,
and East Indian Mohammedans of various shades of yellow and brown. A few
of the Africans are woolly-headed, but more of them have wavy hair. The
hair of the women hangs down in corkscrew curls on both sides of their
faces. Of these people neither sex wears much clothing. The men have rags
around the waist, while the women’s sole garments are skirts which reach
to the feet.
The East Indians, who are everywhere, do most of the retail business
and trading. They are found peddling on every street corner. They
dress according to their caste and religion. The Parsees, who are
fire-worshippers, wear black preacher-like coats and tall hats of the
style of an inverted coal scuttle. The East Indian Mohammedans wear
turbans and the Hindus wrap themselves up in great sheets of white
cotton. There are besides many Greeks and Italians, and not a few
Persians. The English dress in white and wear big helmets to keep off the
sun.
This is the land of the camel. Caravans are coming in and going out of
the city every day bringing in bags of Mocha coffee and gums and taking
out European goods and other supplies to the various oases. There is a
considerable trade with Yemen as well as with the tribes of southeastern
Arabia. There are always camels lying in the market places, and one sees
them blubbering and crying as they are loaded and unloaded. They are the
most discontented beasts upon earth, and are as mean as they look. One
bit at me this afternoon as I passed it, and I am told that they never
become reconciled to their masters. Nevertheless, they are the freight
animals of this part of the world, and the desert could not get along
without them. They furnish the greater part of the milk for the various
Arab settlements, and the people make their tents of camel’s hair. They
are, in fact, the cows of the desert. They are of many different breeds,
varying as much in character as horses. There are some breeds that
correspond to the Percheron, and the best among them can carry half a
ton at a load. There are others fitted solely for riding and passenger
travel. The ordinary freight camel makes only about three miles an hour
and eighteen miles is a good day’s work. The best racing camels will
travel twenty hours at a stretch, and will cover one hundred miles in
a day. Seventy-five miles in ten hours is not an uncommon journey for
an Arabian racer, and much better speed has been made. As to prices, an
ordinary freight camel brings about thirty dollars, but a good riding
camel costs one hundred dollars and upward.
Have you ever heard how the camel was created? Here is the story of its
origin as told by the Arabs. They say that God first formed the horse
by taking up a handful of the swift south wind and blowing upon it. The
horse, however, was not satisfied with his making. He complained to God
that his neck was too short for easy grazing and that his hoofs were so
hard that they sank in the sand. Moreover, he said there was no hump
on his back to steady the saddle. Thereupon, to satisfy the horse, God
created the camel, making him according to the equine’s suggestions. And
when the horse saw his ideal in flesh and blood he was frightened at its
ugliness and galloped away. Since then there is no horse that is not
scared when it first sees a camel.
This story makes me think of the Arab tradition as to how God first made
the water buffalo, which, as you know, is about the ugliest beast that
ever wore horns, hair, and skin. God’s first creation was the beautiful
cow. When He had finished it the devil happened that way, and as he saw
it he laughed at the job, and sneered out that he could make a better
beast with his eyes shut. Thereupon the Lord gave him some material such
as He had put into the cow and told him to go to work. The devil wrought
all day and all night, and the result was the water buffalo.
I have made inquiries here and elsewhere as to the Arabian horse. He is
a comparatively scarce animal and he does not run wild in the desert,
as some people suppose. Indeed, comparatively few of the Arabian tribes
have horses, and the best are kept on the plateau of Najd, in the centre
of the peninsula. They belong to the Anazah tribe, which is one of the
oldest of all, and which claims to date back to the Flood. It is a
wealthy tribe, and it has been breeding horses for many generations. The
best stock has pedigrees going back to the time of Mohammed, and the very
choicest come from five mares which were owned by the Prophet and blessed
by him. These horses seldom go out of Arabia. They are owned by the
chiefs, and are not sold, except in times of the direst necessity. Now
and then a few get into Egypt and other parts of North Africa, and the
Sultan of Turkey has usually had some for his stables.
It is only occasionally that a pure-bred Arabian goes to Europe or the
United States. Two of the best stallions we ever imported were those
which General Grant brought from Constantinople. This was, I think,
during his tour around the world. While in Turkey he and the Sultan
visited the royal stables together. As they looked over the horses the
Sultan told Grant to pick out the one he liked best, and he designated a
dapple gray called the Leopard. “It is yours,” said the Sultan, “and this
also,” pointing to a four-year-old colt called Linden Tree. In due time
these two horses arrived in the United States and were put on General
Ed Beale’s farm near Washington. They were used for breeding, and they
produced about fifty fine colts.