The mission having remained some time at Aden, to purchase horses and stores, sailed on the 15th May; and, on losing sight of Aden, the members of the mission characteristically took the “Pilgrims’ vow” not to shave until their return.  On the 17th they opened the town of Tajura, on the verge of a broad expanse of blue water, over which a gossamerlike fleet of fishing catamarans already plied their craft.  Their pilot, an old Arab, was a man of fun, and the specimens of his tongue are good.  In some reference to the anchorage, he said, “Now if we only had two-fathom Ali here, you would not have all these difficulties.  When they want to lay out an anchor, they have nothing to do but to hand it over to Ali, and he walks away with it into six or eight feet without any ado.  I went once upon a time in the dark to grope for a berth on board of his buggalow, and, stumbling over some one’s toes, enquired to whom they belonged.  ‘To Ali,’ was the reply.  ‘And whose knees are these?’ said I, after walking half across the deck.  ‘Ali’s.’  ’And this head in the scuppers, pray whose is it?’ ‘Ali’s; what do you want with it?’ ‘Ali again!’ I exclaimed; ’then I must even look for stowage elsewhere.’”

The sight of a shark in the harbour let loose the old jester again.  “A friend of mine,” said he, “pilot of a vessel almost as fast a sailer as my own, which is acknowledged to be the best in these seas, was bound to Mocha with camels on board.  When off the high table-land betwixt the Bay of Tajura and the Red Sea, one of the beasts dying, was hove overboard.  Up came a shark ten times the size of that fellow there, and swallowed the camel, leaving only his hinder legs sticking out of his jaws; but before he had time to think where he was to find stowage for it, up came another tremendous fellow and bolted the shark, camel, legs, and all.”

In return for this anecdote, the major gave him the story of the two Kilkenny cats in the saw-pit, which fought, until nothing remained of either but the tail and a bit of the flue.  The old pilot doubted.  “How can that be?” said he, revolving the business seriously in his mind.  “As for the story I have told you, it is as true as the Koran.”

After a short stay and presentation to the Sultan of Tajura, a slave-port, with a miserable old man for its master, the mission once more set forth for Shoa; yet even here we glean a specimen of Arab speech.  “Trees attain not to their growth in a single day,” said an Arab, when remonstrating with the sultan on his inordinate love of lucre.  “Take the tree as your text, and learn that property is to be gathered only by slow degrees.”  “True,” said the old miser; “but, sheik, you must have lost sight of the fact, that my leaves are already withered, and that, if I would be rich, I have not a moment to lose.”