ten opalesque reefs stretching as far as the eye
could follow. It seemed strange to me to be peacefully moving toward
her outlying forts, for when I was last in her vicinity one could not
go twenty yards outside the town without being shot at or running the
gauntlet of a few spears. But here I was, slowly approaching its
walls, accompanied by some of the very men who in those days would
have cut my throat without the slightest hesitation. Suakim had
changed much for the better; her streets were cleaner, and mostly free
from Oriental smells. But these sanitary changes always take place
when British officers are to the fore.

Surgeon Capt. Fleming is the medical officer responsible for the
health of the town, and he has been instrumental in carrying out great
reforms, especially in doing away with the tokuls and hovels, in which
the Arabs herded together, and removing them to a special quarter
outside the town.

The principal feature about Suakim to-day is its remarkable water
supply. In 1884 our troops had to depend on condensed sea water,
supplied from an old steamer anchored in the harbor, and the town folk
drew an uncertain supply from the few wells outside the town. But now
Suakim never wants for water, and that of the best. She even boasts of
a fountain in the little square opposite the governor's house.
Engineer Mason is responsible for this state of efficiency, to which
Suakim owes much of her present immunity from disease. During the last
twelve years immense condensing works have been erected on Quarantine
Station; but, better still, about two years ago Mr. Mason discovered
an apparently inexhaustible supply near Gemaiza, about three miles
from the town. There is a theory--which this water finding has made a
possible fact--that as coral does not grow in fresh water, the
channel which allows steamers to approach close up to the town,
through her miles of coral reefs, is caused by a fresh water current
running from the shore.

However, on this theory Mason set to work and found a splendid supply
at Fort Charter; an excavation in the khor there, about 200 feet long
and 40 deep, is now an immense cistern of sweet water, the result of
which the machines condensing 150 tons of water a day are now only
required to produce one-half the quantity, saving the Egyptian
government a considerable outlay.

The natives look upon Mason as a magician, the man who turns the salt
ocean into sweet water. But metal refuse, scrap