APPENDIX II. 



425 



do so once more. This step would tend to increase trade, to 

 obviate accidents in case of shipwreck, and materially assist in 

 civilizing the Somal of the interior. The Government of Bom- 

 bay has doubtless preserved copies of my reports, plans, and 

 estimates concerning the proposed agency, and I would request 

 the Royal Geographical Society to inquire into a project pecu- 

 liarly fitted to promote their views of exploration in the Eastern 

 Horn of Africa. Finally, this move would checkmate any am- 

 bitious projects in the Red Sea. The Suez Canal may be said 

 to have commenced. It appears impossible that the work should 

 pay in a commercial sense. Politically it may, if, at least, its 

 object be, as announced by the Count d'Escayrac de Lauture, 

 at the Societe de Geographie, to c throw open the road of India 

 to the Mediterranean coasting trade, to democratise commerce 

 and navigation.' The first effect of the highway would be, as 

 that learned traveller justly remarks, to open a passage through 

 Egypt to the speronari and feluccas of the Levant, the light 

 infantry of a more regular force. 



" The next step should be to provide ourselves with a 

 more efficient naval force at Aden, the Head- Quarters of the 

 Red Sea Squadron. I may briefly quote as a proof of the 

 necessity for protection, the number of British proteges in the 

 neighbouring ports, and the present value of the Jeddah trade. 



Mocha now contains about twenty-five English subjects, the 

 principal merchants in the place. At Masawwah, besides a few 

 French and Americans, there are from sixteen to twenty British 

 proteges, who trade with the interior, especially for mules 

 required at the Mauritius and our other colonies. Hodaydah 

 has from fifty to sixty, and Jeddah, besides its dozen resident 

 merchants, annually witnesses the transit of some hundreds 

 of British subjects, who flock to the Haj for commerce and 

 devotion. 



" The chief emporium of the Red Sea trade has for centuries 

 past been Jeddah, the port of Meccah. The custom-house 

 reports of 1856 were kindly furnished to me by Capt. Frus- 

 hard, I.N. (now commanding the H.E.I. C's. sloop of war, 

 e ElphinstoneJ) an old and experienced officer, lately employed 

 in blockading Berberah, and who made himself instrumental in 

 quelling certain recent attempts upon Turkish supremacy in 

 Western Arabia. According to these documents, thirty-five 

 ships of English build (square-rigged) arrived at and left Jeddah 

 between the end of September and April, from and for various 

 places in the East, China, Batavia, Singapore, Calcutta, Bom- 

 bay, the Malabar Coast, the Persian Gulf, and Eastern Africa. 

 Nearly all carried our colours, and were protected, or supposed 



