306 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
_ The islands we passed were masses of cinders and scoriæ, red 
and black, quite barren and fearfully inhospitable, with shores 
steep to the water’s edge: all are volcanic cones. We saw 
none of them near the shore, where coral reefs occur, which render 
the southern part of the sea highly dangerous. During the last two 
or three days on the Red Sea, it blew very strong, and we lost our 
boatswain overboard, who was struck by the paddle-wheel and 
killed on the spot. The only feature of interest was some 
patches of red scum, probably of animal matter, tinged by the 
confervoid plant described by Montagne in the Annales (Zricho- 
desmium erythraum, Y think he calls it); it was far too bad 
weather to get any, but it is frequent here, and said to be equally 
so in the Persian gulf: it is also reported to be phosphorescent at 
night. In the afternoon of the 17th, we passed Mocha, a long 
town of white houses and minarets close to the sea, backed by 
rugged, barren mountains. At 7 o’clock the same night, we 
passed through the famous Strait of Babel Mandeb, by a narrow 
passage, a quarter of a mile wide, between the east mainland 
of Arabia and a flat island, and entering the Indian Ocean 
we steamed on to Aden, arriving on the forenoon of the 18th. 
All the Indian surveying officers, of whom there were several on 
board, agree that the name Red Sea is derived from that of 
the Nubian shore, Raid or Red, and not from the occasionally 
discoloured waters. 
I have been much interested with some of the phenomena of the 
Red Sea. The winds always blow up and down it, a fact which - 
is not wonderful, though the southern end is in the N.E. and S.W. 
monsoon, and the northern end within the westerly wind limits. 
The curious thing is, that the north wind blows all the year round, 
from Suez to about 20° S. lat., and the south wind nearly all the 
year from the Straits to Jibbel Zeer island, between which is 9 
broad belt of calms and variables with hot weather and much 
more vapour than at either extremity. Again, though the north 
winds always prevail from Suez southwards to 20° lat., all that 
portion of the sea is higher than the middle or lower part, 
twenty-four feet higher than the Mediterranean. It is also much | 
