848 COFFEE. 



little harbor, but it is the dreariest place imaginable. Not a tree or 

 a shrub is to be seen excepting a few little dwarfs in the yards of 

 the Europeans who are compelled to reside here, and these have 

 a stunted, sickly look, which tells plainly that their existence is 

 not a natural one. The water for the use of the inhabitants of 

 the place, and calling ships, is distilled from sea water, and sold at 

 the rate of about two cents per gallon. There are traditions that rain 

 formerly fell here in suificient quantities, and ancient reservoirs still 

 exist which were constructed for the purpose of holding the sup- 

 ply of water through the dry season. Now, however, it does not 

 rain once in six months, and then only a few drops at a time ; 

 and yet, with all these drawbacks, the place has some commerce. 

 Considerable quantities of Arabian coffee find theii- way from Mocha 

 and other places along the Arabian and Berberian coasts to this 

 point, and minor items, such as dates, figs, ostrich feathers and 

 eggs, leopard skins, etc., are also dealt in here in a small way. 



As soon as a steamer casts anchor she is boarded by half a dozen 

 or more Arab ostrich feather venders, who, in their demands, are 

 as much worse than Chatham Street Jews as the latter are worse 

 than respectable dealers. Twenty, thirty, fifty rupees are de- 

 manded for a bunch of feathers, which they will sell at eight or 

 ten if they cannot get more. It cannot be said that they are 

 smart in this, for the asking of absurd prices at once places even 

 the most verdant purchaser upon his guard, and leads to offers 

 that are as much to the other extreme. Little Berber boys come 

 off to the ship in the tiniest and lightest of wooden dug-out 

 canoes, and dive for pennies which the passengers throw into the 

 water for them, catching them ere they have a chance to sink to 

 the bottom ; for five or ten cents in silver they dive clean under 

 the ship, coming up on the other side. It is an amusing thing to 

 see three or four of these little chaps plunge from their canoes 

 at the same instant after a coin, the nearest of them going down 

 almost perpendicularly, with the white soles of their feet— the 

 only spots of light color about them — moving like fishes' fins, and 

 alone being visible. Those that are a little farther off go down like 

 an arrow at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees, meeting with the 

 others at the bottom, and the strongest of them generally coming 

 up with the coin. The reluctance with which the smaller ones 



