CHAK-CHAK TOWN. 



7 



essential to the rapid performance of the opera- 

 tion. 



The complicated entrance to Chak-Chak, or 

 Shak-Shak as the Arabs call it, the chief port, 

 fort, and town, has that silent, monotonous, 

 melancholy beauty, the loveliness of death, 

 which belongs to the creeks and rivers of those 

 regions. The air was pure and sparkling ; a 

 light breeze played with the little blue waves ; 

 the beach, wherever it appeared, was of the purest 

 golden hue, creamed over with the whitest of 

 foam; and luxuriant trees of the brightest green 

 drooped from their coralline beds over a sea, 

 here deeply azure, there verdigris coloured by 

 the sun shining through it upon a sand-shoal. 

 But animated nature was wanting : we heard not 

 a voic3, we saw no inhabitant — all was pro- 

 foundly still, a great green grave. A chain of 

 islets forms the approach to a creek, below all 

 mangrove and black vegetable mud, which 

 stains the water, and bears roots up sticking 

 like a system of harrows ; above on both sides are 

 rounded swelling hillocks, crowned with the cocoa 

 and the clove. We sailed about on various tacks, 

 and near sunset w^e anchored in the outer port, 

 four or five miles distant from the town. On 

 a wooded eminence rose the white walls and 



