APPENDIX. 349 



competed wlien tlie larger ones were around led us to think that 

 they did not always receive fair play, or, as a youngster on board 

 of our ship remarked to his father : " I believe that big fellow 

 hammers the little chaps under the water " — another illustration 

 of the proverb that " might makes right," and that " Providence 

 is on the side which has the heaviest artillery." 



Down, or rather up the Ked Sea, about one hundred and 

 twenty miles from Aden, in the direction of Suez, is the little 

 port of Mocha, which famishes the trade name for most of the 

 Arabian coffee, which is held in such high estimation in the mar- 

 kets of the world. As before noted, this coffee is now mostly sent 

 coastwise to Aden, and reshipped from there upon passing steam- 

 ers. Another example of fashion in trade is found here in the fact 

 that Europe takes the larger beans, while the American demand 

 is wholly for the smaller ones. So the coffee is carefully picked 

 over, and only the small, uuifox'm-sized beans, put up in a peculiar 

 style, known to the trade as one-eighth, one-fourth, and one-half 

 bales, are sent to the United States. This coffee by itself has a pe- 

 culiarly sharp, almost acrid flavor, and when drunk alone will suit 

 very few palates, it being much better when mixed with three 

 parts of Java, or other mild coffee, to one of Mocha. I had 

 always thought that the far-famed Turkish coffee was made exclu- 

 sively from the Arabian berry ; but, to my surprise, I found, when 

 in Constantinople, this to be quite the reverse of true, most of 

 the coffee used there coming from India and Ceylon. 



But I am getting ahead of my story. Six days up the Ked 

 Sea brought us to Suez and the eastern entrance of the great canal 

 of that name — the greatest commercial, if not the greatest engi- 

 neering vmdertaking of modern times — an undertaking which has 

 shortened the distance to India and points in the East from four 

 to five thousand miles, and in six years has more than doiibled 

 the commercial steam fleet to Europe. I had no idea whatever of 

 the magnitude of this trade until, in passing through the Eed 

 Sea, we met steamers almost hourly, sometimes three or four 

 being in sight at the same time, and in looking over a copy of the 

 London Times I found announcements of seventeen different lines 

 of steamers passing through the Suez Canal to India and the East, 

 some of these lines having weekly departures, and representing 



