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266 AROUND THE WORLD. demands of the city. Standing upon heated sands, by the lowest of these tanks, surrounded by donkeys, camels, and Arabs, never did water taste sweeter to parched lips. Back into Arabia, about seven miles from Aden, there begins to be quite a show of vegetable life. Oases multiply and widen, till farther on are green fields, small trees, and living streams, along which Arabs pitch their nightly tents. Thirty miles from the city is a fine river, which English enterprise thinks of turning into Aden. Arabia is not the vast, barren desert once supposed. In the interior, and among the mountainous portions, are beautiful rivers, dense forests, vast pasture-lands, with choice fruits and grains. ARABIC LITERATURE. No traveler can say much in favor of the Arab character. The Bedouins, athletic, stout, treacherous, and roving,—wild men of the desert portions, — are the degenerate sons of Araby's better days. Like all Eastern countries, this, too, had its golden age, its period of literature and fine arts. While the sacred canon of the Mohammedans was in Arabic, the great bulk of their general literature has been in the flowing and more musical Persian. During the latter part of the dark ages in Europe, the Arabs were the chief cultivators of science ; their hterature having previously attained a high stage of development. They excelled in chemistry, mathematics, history, and poetry. One of their poets, Ferdansi, has been compared to Homer. Whewell, in his " Ethics of Sir James Macintosh," says : — " In the first moiety of the middle ages, distinguished Mohammedan Arabians, among whom two are known to us by the names of Aviesura and Averroes, translated the ancient Peripatetic writings into their own language, expounded their doctrines, in no servile spirit, to their followers, and enabled the European Christians to make those translations of them from Arabic into Latin, which in the eleventh and twelfth centuries gave birth to the scholastic philosophy."

FROM INDIA TO AEABIA. — ADEN AND THE ARABS. 267 This is Aug. 8, and we ship this afternoon for the Red Sea and Egypt. " We'll away to Egypt, and rest awhile In palm-girt palace beside the Nile, And watch from our roof Canopus rise In silver splendor 'mid opal skies." PARTING : STEAMING ALONG THE RED SEA. We sailed into the Red Sea through the Straits of Bab-el« Mandeb, — " the gate of tears,"— so named, doubtless, from the dangers of the sea ; which, while lacking a sufficient number of light-houses, abounds in African coast-winds, rough coral-reefs, and half-hidden rocks, ever the terror of navigators. Steaming northward, the third day out, and rising with the gray gleams of morning, I had another magnificent view of the Southern Cross, hanging low in the hazy south-west distance. A few nights and mornings thereafter, and it faded from our sight forever ; or, at least, till seen by us with unsealed eyes from the evergreen shores of the Morning Land. The withering heat upon the Red Sea was almost beyond human endurance. The winds, sweeping from African sands west of us, fell upon our panting persons at noonday like breaths of fire. Thermometer measurements showed that the mercury stood in the sea-water at 90°, and in the air, from 95*^ to 115° in the shade. Approaching the terminus of this sea, and standing upon the ship's deck in the Gulf of Suez, one sees, lying to the east and west, bald, arid deserts, and shrubless mountain ridges, warm in each morning's glow, and at noon a tremulous mirage of burning, glistening mirrors. of fire ! Farewell, O sea For several miles out from the Suez landing, the sea is only from a mile to two and three miles in width. A roughly-cut and rugged mountain shuts in the desert upon

FROM INDIA TO AEABIA. — ADEN AND THE ARABS. 267<br />

This is Aug. 8, and we ship this afternoon for the Red<br />

Sea and Egypt.<br />

" We'll away to Egypt, and rest awhile<br />

In palm-girt palace beside the Nile,<br />

And watch from our roof Canopus rise<br />

In silver splendor 'mid opal skies."<br />

PARTING :<br />

STEAMING ALONG THE RED SEA.<br />

We sailed into the Red Sea through the Straits of Bab-el«<br />

Mandeb, — " the gate of tears,"— so named, doubtless, from<br />

the dangers of the sea ; which, while lacking a sufficient<br />

number of light-houses, abounds in African coast-winds,<br />

rough coral-reefs, and half-hidden rocks, ever the terror<br />

of navigators.<br />

Steaming northward, the third day out, and rising with<br />

the gray gleams of morning, I had another magnificent view<br />

of the Southern Cross, hanging low in the hazy south-west<br />

distance. A few nights and mornings thereafter, and it<br />

faded from our sight forever ; or, at least, till seen by us with<br />

unsealed eyes from the evergreen shores of the Morning<br />

Land.<br />

The withering heat upon the Red Sea was almost beyond<br />

human endurance. The winds, sweeping from African sands<br />

west of us, fell upon our panting persons at noonday like<br />

breaths of fire. Thermometer measurements showed that<br />

the mercury stood in the sea-water at 90°, and in the air,<br />

from 95*^ to 115° in the shade.<br />

Approaching the terminus of this sea, and standing upon<br />

the ship's deck in the Gulf of Suez, one sees, lying to the<br />

east and west, bald, arid deserts, and shrubless mountain<br />

ridges, warm in each morning's glow, and at noon a<br />

tremulous<br />

mirage of burning, glistening mirrors.<br />

of fire !<br />

Farewell, O sea<br />

For several miles out from the Suez landing, the sea is<br />

only from a mile to two and three miles in width. A<br />

roughly-cut and rugged mountain shuts in the desert upon

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