is latter
achievement attracted scarcely any public attention at the time of
its occurrence, its merits are quite sufficient to entitle it to a
more detailed notice than it has hitherto received in the pages of
Maga. Nor can a more opportune juncture be found than the present,
when the late events in Cabul have apparently had a marvellous
effect in opening the eyes of our statesmen, both in India and
England, to the moral and political delinquency of the system we
have so long pursued--of taking the previous owner's consent for
granted, whenever it suited our views to possess ourselves of a
fortress, island, or tract of territory, belonging to any nation not
sufficiently civilized to have had representatives at the Congress
of Vienna. Whether our repentance is to be carried the length of
universal restitution, remains to be seen; if so, it is to be hoped
that the circumstances of the capture of Aden will be duly borne in
mind. But before we proceed to detail the steps by which the British
colours came to be hoisted at this remote angle of Arabia, it will
be well to give some account of the place itself and its previous
history; since we suspect that the majority of newspaper politicians,
unless the intelligence of its capture chanced to catch their eye in
the columns of the _Times_, are to this day ignorant that such a
fortress is numbered among the possessions of the British crown.

The harbour of Aden, then, lies on the south coast of Yemen, as
nearly as possible in 12 45' N. latitude, and 45 10' E. longitude;
somewhat more than 100 miles east of Cape Bab-el-Mandeb, at the
entrance of the Red Sea; and about 150 miles by sea, or 120 by land,
from Mokha, [34] the nearest port within the Straits. The town was built
on the eastern side of a high rocky peninsula, about four miles in
length from E. to W., by two miles and a half N. and S.--which was
probably, at no very remote period, an island, but is now joined to
the mainland by a long low sandy isthmus, [35] on each side of which,
to the east and west, a harbour is formed between the peninsula and
the mainland. The East Bay, immediately opposite the town, though
of comparatively small extent, is protected by the rocky islet of
Seerah, rising seaward to the height of from 400 to 600 feet, and
affords excellent anchorage at all times, except during the north-east
monsoon: but the Western or Black Bay, completely landlocked and
sheltered in great part of its extent by th