ADEN. : 309 
swarming with rats and mosquitoes. We managed tolerably well, 
however, during our short stay. At about 2 o’clock the “ Pre- 
cursor” arrived, and as soon as I could get away I went on board, 
and saw our friends Mr. and Mrs. S., who came on shore for a 
donkey-ride in the cool of the evening. The steepness and rug- 
gedness of the black crags, utterly devoid of vegetation, the 
curious ridges of Trap, and beds of scoria, Lava, and Pumice, 
which extend from their bases to the sea, and the wild disconnected 
rocks that rise here and there from the ocean close to the shore, 
render the scenery most striking, and in the moonlight awfully 
grand, more especially in twilight or sunset, when the exquisitely 
delicate colouring of the sky and the few scattered clouds that 
speckle it, contrast singularly with the wild features of the land. 
In the gravelly hollows a very few plants are seen, woefully wide 
apart, and never in sufficient quantity to give a verdant hue to even 
an acre of ground at this season; but I am told that grass appears 
in spring. The most conspicuous plant is a bushy green Capparis 
(Caper) and next a large Reseda (Mignonette), the commonest 
plant in the island: next comes a large herbaceous Capparis with 
bright golden flowers; and then rusty-looking Acacia bushes, and 
some odd-looking Huphorbias. ‘The shores are bold and rocky, 
yielding rock-oysters, but destitute of 44e. 
On Sunday morning we started very early for the cantonment 
or town, four miles off. The Governor-General, Courtenay, 
Capt. Haines, and myself, were all the party. Our conveyance 
was a pretty French barouche with four horses: our road, an 
excellent. one, wound along the beach opposite the Arab shore. 
At the neck of the peninsula is a steep hill leading to the: 
“ Gorge,” which connects the valley of Aden with the rest of the 
peninsula; and here we left the carriage for Arab horses, all except 
the Governor, who had a Palanquin, while the carriage was 
dragged up after us through the fortified pass. At this place we 
ascended a hill to survey the fortifications, and obtain a view of the 
disputed points and modes of attack and defence. The scene was 
very grand, overlooking the flat sandy isthmus, with its Turkish 
and Arab forts and walls, similar to that neck connecting Gibraltar 
