[Footnote 38:  “No part of the coast of Arabia is celebrated for the goodness of its water, with the single exception of Aden.  The wells there are 300 in number, cut mostly though the rock, ... and the tanks were found in good order, coated inside and out with excellant chunam, (stucco,) and merely requiring cleaning out to be again serviceable.”]

At the time of its evacuation by the Turks, Aden is said, notwithstanding the decay of its Indian trade, to have contained from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants; and the lofty minarets which, a few years since, still towered above the ruins of the mosques to which they had formerly been attached, as well as the extensive burying-grounds, in which the turbaned headstones peculiar to the Turks are even yet conspicuous, bear testimony, not less than the extent and magnitude of the ruinous fortifications, to the population and splendour of the town under the Ottomans.—­(See WELLSTED’S Arabia, vol. ii, chap. 19.) From the time, however, of its return into the hands of its former owners, its decline was rapid.  Niebuhr, who visited it in the latter part of the last century, says, that it had but little trade, as its Sheikh [39] (who had long since shaken off his dependence on the Iman of Sana) was not on good terms with his neighbors; and, though Sir Home Popham concluded a commercial treaty with the uncle and predecessor of the present Sultan Mahassan, no steps appear to have been taken in consequence of this arrangement.

[Footnote 39:  The town would appear to have passed into the hands of another tribe since Niebuhr’s time, as he gives the Sheikh the surname of El-Foddeli (Futhali,) the present chief being of the Abdalli tribe.]

In 1835, according to Wellsted, the inhabitants of this once flourishing emporium did not exceed 800, the only industrious class among whom were the Jews, who numbered from 250 to 300.  The remainder were “the descendants of Arabs, Sumaulis,” (a tribe of the African coast,) “and the offspring of slaves,” who dwelt in wretched huts, or rather tents, on the ruins of the former city.  “Not more than twenty families are now engaged in mercantile pursuits, the rest gaining a miserable existence either by supplying the Hadj boats with wood and water, or by fishing.”  The chief, Sultan Mahassan, did not even reside in Aden, but in a town called Lahedj, about eighteen miles distant, where he kept the treasures which his uncle, who was a brave and politic ruler, had succeeded in amassing.  He reputation for wealth, however, and the inadequacy of his means for defending it, drew on him the hostility of the more warlike tribes in the vicinity; and in 1836 Aden was sacked by the Futhalis, who not only carried off booty to the value of 30,000 dollars, (principally the property of the Banians and the Sumauli merchants in the port,) but compelled the Sultan to agree to an annual payment of 360 dollars; while two other tribes, the Yaffaees and the Houshibees, took the opportunity to exhort