ADEN. 55 



Moored to the other side of the ship we found 

 two huge lighters, from which bales of goods 

 were being hoisted aboard. Two camels and a 

 dozen diminutive mules stood in the waist of one 

 of these craft. The camels were as sniffy and 

 supercilious and scornful as camels always are ; 

 and everybody promptly hated them with the 

 hatred of the abysmally inferior spirit for some- 

 thing that scorns it, as is the usual attitude of the 

 human mind towards camels. We waited for 

 upwards of an hour, in the hope of seeing those 

 camels hoisted aboard ; but in vain. While 

 we were so waiting one of the deck passengers 

 below us, a Somali in white clothes and a gor- 

 geous cerise turban, decided to turn in. He 

 spread a square of thin matting atop one of the 

 hatches, and began to unwind yards and yards of 

 the fine silk turban. He came to the end of it 

 whisk ! he sank to the deck ; the turban, spread 

 open by the resistance of the air, fluttered down 

 to cover him from head to foot. Apparently he 

 fell asleep at once, for he did not again move nor 

 alter his position. He, as well as an astonish- 

 ingly large proportion of the other Somalis and 

 Abyssinians we saw, carried a queer, well-de- 

 fined, triangular wound in his head. It had long 

 since healed, was an inch or so across, and looked 



