The aspect and history of the town and port of Suakin might afford a useful instance to a cynical politician.  Most of the houses stand on a small barren island which is connected with the mainland by a narrow causeway.  At a distance the tall buildings of white coral, often five storeys high, present an imposing appearance, and the prominent chimneys of the condensing machinery—­for there is scarcely any fresh water—­seem to suggest manufacturing activity.  But a nearer view reveals the melancholy squalor of the scene.  A large part of the town is deserted.  The narrow streets wind among tumbled-down and neglected houses.  The quaintly carved projecting windows of the facades are boarded up.  The soil exhales an odour of stagnation and decay.  The atmosphere is rank with memories of waste and failure.  The scenes that meet the eye intensify these impressions.  The traveller who lands on Quarantine Island is first confronted with the debris of the projected Suakin-Berber Railway.  Two or three locomotives that have neither felt the pressure of steam nor tasted oil for a decade lie rusting in the ruined workshops.  Huge piles of railway material rot, unguarded and neglected, on the shore.  Rolling stock of all kinds—­carriages, trucks, vans, and ballast waggons—­are strewn or heaped near the sheds.  The Christian cemetery alone shows a decided progress, and the long lines of white crosses which mark the graves of British soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in action or by disease during the various campaigns, no less than the large and newly enclosed areas to meet future demands, increase the depression of the visitor.  The numerous graves of Greek traders—­a study of whose epitaphs may conveniently refresh a classical education—­protest that the climate of the island is pestilential.  The high loopholed walls declare that the desolate scrub of the mainland is inhabited only by fierce and valiant savages who love their liberty.

For eleven years all trade had been practically stopped, and the only merchants remaining were those who carried on an illicit traffic with the Arabs or, with Eastern apathy, were content to wait for better days.  Being utterly unproductive, Suakin had been wisely starved by the Egyptian Government, and the gloom of the situation was matched by the poverty of its inhabitants.

The island on which the town stands is joined to the mainland by a causeway, at the further end of which is an arched gateway of curious design called ‘the Gate of the Soudan.’  Upon the mainland stands the crescent-shaped suburb of El Kaff.  It comprises a few mean coral-built houses, a large area covered with mud huts inhabited by Arabs and fishermen, and all the barracks and military buildings.  The whole is surrounded by a strong wall a mile and a half long, fifteen feet high, six feet thick, with a parapet pierced for musketry and strengthened at intervals by bastions armed with Krupp guns.