CHAPTER XVIII.

'TWIXT AFRICA AND ARABIA.

On the way from India into Egypt I pass 'twixt Africa and Arabia over two famous waterways. The one is the earliest and the other the latest that we read of. These two, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, are lately wedded, not as the Doge of Venice was married to the Adriatic, but in a May and December sort of alliance that was attempted of olden time, and is now renewed. They are as strange and as story-full, these watery highways, as the two lands of romance that they divide.

Of no other waters can we read or hear that high roads of dry land have existed across their present courses. Yet where the "Pekin" takes me along at the rate of twelve knots an hour the Israelites crossed dryshod-if our captain is to be credited; and where I pass on further down, at the rate of two knots only, all the world of Eastern travellers waddled over the sands only a few years back. There is plenty of time to think of all that and much more as our vessel drags over the shallow waters of what a high authority has called "the most glorious triumph of this generation of engineering wonders."

The thoughts about the Red Sea begin and end with the Israelites. It has been a good thing for them more than once in the way of "spoiling the Egyptians." The Rothschilds have lately made between one and two hundred thousands out of the sale to England of the Khedive's half share of the canal end of it. For centuries it was, similarly

to its outlet, shut up and dead. Waghorn then, and the canal now, have brought it before the world again; much as the Belzonis bring to light the mummies of its Egyptian shore from their long sleep to the lullaby of its lapping

waters.

The "Gate of Desolation" is right name enough for the eastern entrance to this sea. Such sterility as one then looks at for twelve hundred miles exhausts execration. The very lands it disgraces-Nubia, Abyssinia, Egypt, and the Arabian shore-are so antiquated as to be no longer considered in the swim of the world's tide, but as long ago left high and dry by it. The very waters are but the covering of landmarks, for the sea is as full of wrecks as of recollections. The hosts of Pharaoh and their belongings are but a trifle to what shall be rendered when this sea shall give up its dead. The spot where lie the remains of some wreck or another is being always shown to one. The "Carnatic" went down off that point, the "Nautilus' Nautilus" was wrecked there, and the "Northam" yonder. The "Alma" was lost just about here, and the "Emeu" away over there. Such and such other fine vessels found their graves at other places pointed out in the long course of the voyage. Rocky islands and rocks, burnt to cinders on the surface, stud the whole length of this sea, both above and below its waters. On those beneath it untold ships' companies have found a dwelling with the sirens and the mermaids on its famous coral reefs. Sailing vessels avoid the Red Sea, as the winds there are as treacherous as the waters, and months might be wasted in getting through it-if got through at all. It is all left to steamers now, and they have multiplied on its waters very much lately. The canal has been the cause of that-making the Red Sea the future Eastern high-road, to the annihilation of all traffic.by that old Cape route by which our forefathers took their six months' voyages. The day of sailing-vessels-the old "East Indiamen "-may be considered as closed. The opening of the canal has led to great competition, to the reduction of fares and freight, and to the breaking up of the monopolies

of the English Peninsular and Oriental and the French Messageries lines.

To the numbers that this sea has drowned have to be added those who die upon its waters through "heat apoplexy." During the six or seven days of passage down it, life is, in many months of the year, all perspiration, suffering, gasping for air, and groaning for sleep. This trouble is so dreadful at times that it cannot be overlooked, and the object of the journey and time itself become of but secondary consideration. The vessel is turned this way, that way, and the other, in search of any breeze that can be caught, which to the poor passengers is as the breath of life. For hours together the ship will go back over its course, if by so doing life can be made bearable. Deaths to the extent of three or four in one vessel through the heat alone are not uncommon. One occurred in the next cabin to mine, and of personal friends I recall two who were in good health when starting on their voyage, but whose bones now whiten on the coral reefs of these waters.

As the Gate of Desolation is the fit name for the entrance to this sea, so is Aden the fittest introduction to its wretched shores. The rocky cinder-heap of a place is a garrison fortress and camp town-a sort of Gibraltar in many ways. In 1839, when England took possession of it, the folks who were here lived in old Cornish fashion upon wrecks and wreckage. The miserable hole had but twenty traders in it. It has now, under England's fostering care, got fully forty thousand folks gently baking there.

So determined is the climate that the woolly hair of the natives is actually bleached or burnt up to a yellow colour. These folks, with mop-looking heads of yellow wool, are a sort of cross between negroes and Hindoos. In figure they resemble the Hindoostanee people, but are more lively and spry in their ways and humours. Their diving abilities, which are great, are no wonder when the necessity of cooling themselves in some way is considered—and it is considered very soon after landing at Aden. Stopping in the water altogether seems desirable.