THE VOYAGE FROM NAPLES TO EAST AFRICA. 29 



forsaken of God and man than the bare, red peaks and mountains 

 that encircle the Gulf of Suez. Not a blade of grass could grow 

 there, not the boldest cactus. You look and long to see a lonely lion 

 roaring out his grief — it would seem so meet in those fierce solitudes. 

 The heat grows very stuffy and moist when you get into the 

 Red Sea, where the sun of the tropics begins to make itself a feature 

 of your days in joyous, exquisite sunrises, burning, intolerable noons 

 and sunsets of ineffable splendor. If you are wise you will join the 

 deck sleepers who have their beds made up in the airy stretches 

 of the promenade decks on steamer chairs and benches. Even with 

 electric fans going, sleep in cabins is not to be compared to that 

 which you get above, fanned by night winds, blowing across the 

 softly heaving water, with the stars blinking down at you and the 

 call from the forward watch at the prow floating back to you. 



ARRIVAL AT ADEN. 



Some bleak, bare, red islands rise and menace you and fade 

 away as you steam toward Aden. A stop at Port Sudan puts you 

 in touch with the Upper Nile and the mysterious hinterland, that 

 hotbed of the most dangerous type of religious fanaticism. Then 

 one morning you will wake to find the fierce, red peaks that frown 

 over Aden frowning over you as well, as the ship lies at anchor in 

 the greenest of pale green water. A clamorous throng of natives 

 in little boats is swarming about the steamer offering ostrich 

 feathers, shells, ivory, sandalwood and all the queer products of 

 Asia and Africa (of a very inferior quality). 



But it is best to go ashore while the ship coals again. Before 

 you go do notice the men who are coaling. Lean to emaciation, 

 rather long in the limb, their black skins look gray because they dye 

 their sprouting, wooly locks a carroty red. Naked as they were 

 born, this uncanny tribe run up and down the ship's sides with their 

 little baskets of dusty coal. Already the smell of the coal dust is 

 in the nostrils. Let us hurry down to the tender waiting to take 

 us ashore, before our nice, white suits are smutty. 



The one thing to do at Aden is to drive to the wells, said by 

 some to have been built by Solomon, which you may believe or not 



