Red Sea.] ORIENTAL COMMERCE. 



cleanest specimens are somewhat transparent. It has little or no smell, and 

 a taste rather disagreeable. It melts in the mouth to a very soft mucilage, 

 without sticking to the teeth, as Gum Arabic does. The most striking 

 difference between this and the other gums is, that it gives a thicker con- 

 sistence to a much larger quantity of water, and is with difficulty soluble, 

 or rather dissolves but imperfectly. When put into water, it slowly im- 

 bibes a great quantity, swells in a large volume, and forms a soft, but not 

 fluid mucilage : by agitation, and an addition of water, a solution may be 

 obtained, but the gummy mucilage settles to the bottom on standing. Gum 

 Tragacanth should be chosen in long twisted pieces, semi-transparent, white, 

 very clear, and free from all other colours ; the brown, and particularly the 

 black, are to be wholly rejected. There is a sort of gum, which has been 

 occasionally brought to England, resembling Tragacanth in outward appear* 

 ance, but more transparent, called Xuteera, the produce, not of a thorny 

 shrub, but of the Stercutia Urens (Roxb.,) which is not applicable to the 

 same purposes, or indeed of any value. Of Tragacanth, 1(3 cwt, is allowed 

 to a ton. 



SECTION JX 



COAST OF ARABIA TO THE PERSIAN GUXPII. 



ADEN.— About lOO miles to the K of the Straits of Babelraandel, 

 is Cape Aden, in lat 12 3 43£' N., long. 45° 14' JB. This Cape is high and 

 craggy, and forms a peninsula, with a deep bay to the W., called Back 

 Bay, and another to the E., in winch the town of Aden is situated, in lat. 

 about 12° 4# N., where ships lie sheltered from W. winds. The anchorage 

 is in 7 fathoms, with Cape Aden bearing S. ; the mosque touching the 

 N. W. point of Fortified Island (a black islet with a tower on its extremity) 

 about three-quarters of a mile from the island. 



The town of Aden has a miserable appearance from the sea, being 

 nearly a heap of ruins, out of which two minarets and a mosque rear their 

 heads. The, rocky peninsula on which the town is situated, was formerly 



I' 2 



