The garrison were prepared, at the period of our arrival, for the outbreak which has since occurred.  It is melancholy to contemplate the sacrifice of life which will in all probability take place before the Arabs will be reconciled to the loss of a territory which has for a long time been of no use to them, but which, under its present masters, bids fair to introduce mines of wealth into an impoverished country.  The Pasha of Egypt had long cast a covetous eye upon Aden, and its occupation by the British took place at the precise period requisite to check the ambitious designs of a man thirsting for conquest, and to allay the fears of the Imaum of Muscat, who, naturally enough, dreaded encroachments upon his territory.

Aden had hitherto agreed very well with its European residents.  The sepoys, servants, and camp-followers, however, had suffered much both from mental and bodily ailments.  They were deprived of their usual sources of amusement, and of their accustomed food, and languished under that home-sickness, which the natives of India feel in a very acute degree.  The greater number of servants were discontented, and anxious to return to their native country.  This natural desire upon their part was highly resented by their masters, who, instead of taking the most obvious means of remedying the evil, and employing the natives of the place, who appeared to be tractable and teachable enough, abused and threatened to beat the unfortunate people, convicted of what self-love styles “ingratitude.”

In a very clever work, I have seen the whole sum of the miseries of human life comprised in one word, “servants;” and until we can procure human beings with all the perfections of our fallen nature, and none of our faults, to minister to our wants and wishes, the complaint, so sickening and so general, and frequently so unjust, will be reiterated.  Anglo-Indians, however, seem to be more tormented by these domestic plagues than any other set of people.  The instant a stranger lands upon Asiatic ground, we hear of nothing else.  It is considered to be polite conversation in the drawing-room, aid delicate-looking women will listen with the greatest complacence to the most brutal threats uttered by their male associates against the wretched people whom hard fate has placed about their persons.  By some mischance, these very individuals are equally ill-served at home, the greater number who return to England being either rendered miserable there, or driven back to India in consequence of the impossibility of managing their servants.  As far as my own experience goes, with the exception of the people in the Berenice, who were not in the slightest degree under the control of the passengers, or, it may be said, attached to them in any way, I have always found it easy, both at home and abroad, to obtain good servants, at least quite as good as people, conscious of the infirmities of humanity in their own persons, have a right to expect.  My simple rule has been, never to keep a person who did not suit me, and to treat those who did with kindness and indulgence.  The system has always answered, and I am probably on that account the less inclined to sympathize with persons who are eternally complaining.