ion goes further still. The Bostan al Irem (Garden of Paradise) is
believed still to exist in the deserts of Aden; though geographers differ
on its position. It still retains its domes and bowers--both of
indescribable beauty; its crystal fountains, and its walks strewed with
pearls for sand. It is true, that no living man can absolutely aver that
he has seen this place of wonders; but that is a mere result of our very
wicked age. This has not been always the case; for Abdallah Ibn Aboo
Kelaba passed a night in its palace in the reign of Moowiych, the prince
of the Faithful. Lucky the man who shall next find it, but unlucky the
world when he does; for then the day of the general conflagration will be
at hand. In the mean time, it remains, like the top of Mount Meru, covered
with clouds, or, like the inside of a Chinese puzzle, a work of unrivaled
art, conceivable but intangible by man.

In this pleasant mingling of fact, visible to his shrewd eye, and fiction
drawn from ancient fancy, Major Harris leads us on. But Aden is not yet
exhausted of wonders--an island in its bay, Seerah, (the fortified black
isle,) is pronounced to have been the refuge of Cain on the murder of Abel;
and its volcanic and barren chaos is no unequal competitor for the honour
with the rocks of the Caucasus.

But England, which changes every thing, is changing all this. Within the
next generation, the railway will run down the romances of Nutrib; a
cotton manufactory will send up its smokes to blot out the celestial blue
by day, and shoot forth its sullen illumination by night, over the
anointed soil; the minstrel will turn policeman, and the sheik be a
justice of peace; political economy will have its itinerant lecturers,
enlightening the Bedouins on the principles of rent and taxes; the city
will have a lord mayor and corporation of the deepest black; the volcano
will be planted with villas; turnpikes will measure out the sands; a hotel
will flourish on the summit of Jebel Shemshan; and Aden will differ from
Liverpool in nothing but being two thousand miles further from the smoke
and multitudes of London.

The Arab is still the prominent person among the native population of this
territory. Major Harris describes him well. The bronzed and sunburnt
visage, surrounded by long matted locks of raven hair; the slender but
wiry and active frame, and the energetic gait and manner, proclaimed the
untamable descendant of Ishmael. He nimbly mounts the cru