ing four times as many
as the whole population of the United States. Order is preserved at a
cruel cost of life among an entire race who are totally unrepresented.
In travelling from city to city one is not surprised to see many signs
of restlessness among the common people, and to hear harsh expressions
against British rule. While we recall with a thrill of horror the awful
cruelties and the slaughter of human beings during the rebellion of the
native race against the English authority in 1857, we do not wonder that
a people, so goaded by oppression, should have made a vigorous and
bloody struggle to obtain their independence.

We embark at Bombay on a voyage of three thousand miles across the Sea
of Arabia and the Indian Ocean, through the Straits of Babelmandeb and
the entire length of the Red Sea. The most southerly point of the
voyage, taking us within fourteen degrees of the equator, carries us
into an extremely warm temperature. The ship holds on her southwest
course day after day, lightly fanned by the northeast monsoon, towards
the mouth of the Red Sea. At the end of the sixth day we cast anchor at
the Peninsula of Aden, a rocky, isolated spot held by English troops,
and very properly called the Gibraltar of the Indian Ocean. Like that
famous promontory, it was originally little more than a barren rock,
which has been improved into a picturesque and habitable place,
bristling with British cannon of heavy calibre. It is a spot much
dreaded by sailors, the straits being half closed by sunken rocks,
besides which the shore is considered to be the most unhealthy spot yet
selected by civilized man as a residence. The Arabs call the strait
Babelmandeb, that is, the "Gate of Tears," because of the number of
vessels which have been wrecked here in the endeavor to enter from the
open sea. Aden lies within the rainless zone, so that sometimes the
inhabitants see no rainfall for three years together. The remains of an
ancient and magnificent system of reservoirs hewn out of the solid rock,
are seen here, the construction of which is placed at a date previous
to the Christian era, and which have been adapted to modern use.

As we lie at anchor here, there come about the ship a score of young
natives, from ten to fifteen years of age. By eloquent gestures, and the
use of a few English words, they beg of us to throw small silver coin
into the sea, for which they will dive in water that is at least seven
fathoms deep. The in