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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844 by Various
page 14 of 303 (04%)
her power, industry, commerce, and peace are the natural result. Aden,
barren as the soil is, is evidently approaching to a prosperity which it
never possessed even in its most flourishing days. Emigrants from Yemen
and from both shores of the Red Sea, are daily crowding within the walls,
through the security which they offer against native oppression. In the
short space of three years, the population has risen to twenty thousand
souls. Substantial dwellings are rising up in every quarter, and at all
the adjacent ports hundreds of native merchants are only waiting the
erection of permanent fortifications, in token of our intending to remain,
to flock under the guns with their families and wealth. The opinion of
this intelligent writer is, that Aden, as a free port, whilst she pours
wealth into a now impoverished land, must erelong become the queen of the
adjacent seas, and rank amongst the most useful dependencies of the
British crown.

The mission having remained some time at Aden, to purchase horses and
stores, sailed on the 15th May; and, on losing sight of Aden, the members
of the mission characteristically took the "Pilgrims' vow" not to shave
until their return. On the 17th they opened the town of Tajura, on the
verge of a broad expanse of blue water, over which a gossamerlike fleet of
fishing catamarans already plied their craft. Their pilot, an old Arab,
was a man of fun, and the specimens of his tongue are good. In some
reference to the anchorage, he said, "Now if we only had two-fathom Ali
here, you would not have all these difficulties. When they want to lay out
an anchor, they have nothing to do but to hand it over to Ali, and he
walks away with it into six or eight feet without any ado. I went once
upon a time in the dark to grope for a berth on board of his buggalow, and,
stumbling over some one's toes, enquired to whom they belonged. 'To Ali,'
was the reply. 'And whose knees are these?' said I, after walking half
across the deck. 'Ali's.' 'And this head in the scuppers, pray whose is
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