APPENDIX. 347 



begun on a large scale, twenty or more factories of large capacity 

 being now in full operation and strongly competing with Man- 

 chester, not only for the trade of Hindostan, but also for that of 

 British Burmah, the Straits Settlements, and China. ' Indian cot- 

 ton manufacturers say that there is a bright future before them, 

 and, if this be true, taken in connection with the increased ability 

 of American cotton manufacturers to compete with English cotton 

 spinners for the rest of the markets of the world, I do not see 

 what the latter are going to do. They certainly will have to open 

 up Central Africa, and educate the negroes up to the necessity of 

 wearing cotton breech-cloths, or the manufacturers of Manchester 

 win have to go to the wall. 



FEOM BOMBAY TO EGYPT. 



This part of my trip, for heat and discomfort, had the worst 

 reputation of any. In China it was hot, but I was told : 

 " Wait till you get to the Eed Sea before you begin to com- 

 plain." At Singapore and in Java I was told the same thing, 

 and, while sweltering in Southern India, with the thermometer at 

 upwards of 100° in the shade, I was consoled with the informa- 

 tion that I " would find it much hotter on the Eed Sea." So, 

 when we sailed from Bombay, I got out my thinnest clothing, and 

 prepared fo^ a scorcher. From Bombay to Aden, the port of call 

 and coaling station for most of the steamers plying between India 

 and Europe, it is 1,664 miles, and from Aden to Suez, through 

 the Eed Sea, 1,308 miles; making a total of 2,972 miles. Seven 

 days on the steamer Trinacria, of the Anchor Line, with delight- 

 ful weather, and scarcely an incident except the occasional passing 

 of ships and flights of flying-fish, brought us to Aden. The coast, 

 as we approached this place, is the most sterile and forbidding 

 that can be imagined ; of volcanic origin, with scarcely a drop of 

 rain falling throughout the whole year, not a blade of verdure is 

 to be seen, and its successive mountains resemble more than any- 

 thing else a series of gigantic ash-heaps. Aden itself has a pretty 



