th any attempt at description of the treeless
surroundings and barren lava crags that constitute the scenery; which,
moreover, many may have seen for themselves. What chiefly interested
me were the Jews and the camels. Like Gibraltar, and in less measure
Key West, Aden is a place where meet many and divers peoples from
Asia, from Africa, and from Europe. Furthermore, it has had a long and
checkered history; and this, at an important centre on a commercial
route, tends to the gathering of incongruous elements. English, Arabs,
Parsees from India, Somalese from Africa,--across the gulf,--sepoy
soldiers, and Jews, all were to be met; and in varieties of costume
for which we had not been prepared by our narrow experience of
Oriental dress in Johanna. The Jews most attracted my attention--an
attraction of repulsion to the type there exhibited, though I am
without anti-Semitic feeling. That Jesus Christ was a Jew covers His
race for me. These were reported to have enjoyed in earlier times a
period of much prosperity, which had been destroyed in one of the
dramatic political reverses frequent in Eastern annals. Since then
they had remained a degraded and abject class. Certainly, they were
externally a very peculiar and unprepossessing people. The physiognomy
commonly associated with the name Jew was very evident, though the
cast of feature had been brutalized by ages of oppression and
servility. A singular distinctive mark was the wearing on both sides
of the forehead long curls falling to the shoulders. Cringing and
subservient in manner, and as traders, there was yet apparent behind
the Uriah Heap exterior a fierce cruelty of expression which would
make a mob hideous, if once let loose. A mob, indeed, is ever
terrible; but these men reconstituted for me, with added vividness,
the scene and the cry of "Crucify Him!"

Although I was new to the East, camels in their uncouth form and
shambling gait had been made familiar by menageries; but in Aden I
first saw them in the circumstances which give the sense of
appropriateness necessary to the completeness of an impression, and,
indeed, to its enjoyment. Environment is assuredly more essential to
appreciation than is commonly recognized. Does beer taste as good in
America as in England? I think not, unless perhaps in Newport, Rhode
Island. Climatic, doubtless. I have been told by Englishmen that the
very best pineapples to be had are raised in England under glass. Very
good; but wh