a pair of nice horses, and two servants in Eastern liveries, green vests and full trousers, and red and orange turbans.  We went first to his store, which seemed to be an emporium for every conceivable article.  There was carved sandal-wood, and embroidered shawls from China, Surat, and Gujerat, work from India, English medicines, French lamps, Swiss clocks, German toys, Russian caviare, Greek lace, Havannah cigars, American hides and canned fruits, besides many other things.  The feathers did not look very tempting; there was a great deal of feather and very little stem about most of them, and only a few were white, the majority being a pretty sort of brown and drab.  But this general store is only a very small part of their business, for about 60,000 tons of coal pass through their hands every year.

We went on to the Hotel de l’Europe, which was by no means in first-rate order, but allowances must be made for a new house.  A delightful breeze was blowing in through the open windows, and although the thermometer registered 85 deg. in the dining-room, it did not seem at all hot.  The view over the bay is very pretty, and the scene on shore thoroughly Arabian, with the donkeys and camels patiently carrying their heavy loads, guided by the true Bedaween of the desert, and people of all tinges of complexion, from jet black to pale copper colour.  A pair of tame ostriches, at least seven feet high, were strolling about the roadway, and a gazelle, some monkeys, parrots, and birds lived happily together beneath a broad verandah.  After a little while we went for a drive to see the camp and town of Aden, which is four or five miles from the Point where everybody lands.  On the way we met trains of heavily laden camels bringing in wood, water, grain, and fodder, for garrison consumption, and coffee and spices for exportation.  After driving for about four miles we reached a gallery pierced through the rock, which admits you into the precincts of the fort.  The entrance is very narrow, the sides precipitous, and the place apparently impregnable.  We went all through the town, or rather towns, past the Arab village, the Sepoy barracks, and the European barracks, to the water tanks, stupendous works carved out of the solid rock, but until lately comparatively neglected, the residents depending entirely on distillation for their supply of water.  There is a pretty little garden at the foot of the lowest tank, but the heat was intense in the bottom of the deep valley amongst the rocks, where every sun-ray seemed to be collected and reflected from the white glaring limestone, and every breath of air to be excluded.  We saw a little more of the town and the market crowded with camels, the shops full of lion, leopard, and hyaena skins.  We went to the officers’ mess-house, visited the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and the Mohammedan mosque, and then passing through two long tunnels, bored and blasted in the solid rock, we looked over the fortifications.  Finally, we