came on deck to find ourselves close aboard a number of volcanic
islands. They were composed entirely of red and dark purple lava blocks,
rugged, quite without vegetation save for occasional patches of stringy
green in a gully; and uninhabited except for a lighthouse on one, and a
fishing shanty near the shores of another. The high mournful mountains,
with their dark shadows, seemed to brood over hot desolation. The rusted
and battered stern of a wrecked steamer stuck up at an acute angle from
the surges. Shortly after we picked up the shores of Arabia.

Note the advantages of a half ignorance. From early childhood we had
thought of Arabia as the "burning desert"--flat, of course--and of the
Red Sea as bordered by "shifting sands" alone. If we had known the
truth--if we had not been half ignorant--we would have missed the
profound surprise of discovering that in reality the Red Sea is bordered
by high and rugged mountains, leaving just space enough between
themselves and the shore for a sloping plain on which our glasses could
make out occasional palms. Perhaps the "shifting sands of the burning
desert" lie somewhere beyond; but somebody might have mentioned these
great mountains! After examining them attentively we had to confess that
if this sort of thing continued farther north the children of Israel
must have had a very hard time of it. Mocha shone white, glittering, and
low, with the red and white spire of a mosque rising brilliantly above
it.




VI.

ADEN.