e high ground of its
peninsula, (which rises to an elevation of nearly 1800 feet,) runs up
inland a distance of seven miles from the headland of Jibel-Hassan,
(which protects its mouth on the west,) to the junction of the isthmus
with the main, and presents at all times a secure and magnificent
harbour, four miles wide at the entrance, and perfectly free from
rocks, shoals, and all impediments to ingress or egress. Such are the
natural advantages of Aden: and "whoever"--says Wellsted--"might have
been the founder, the site was happily selected, and well calculated
by its imposing appearance not only to display the splendour of its
edifices, but also, uniting strength with ornament, to sustain the
character which it subsequently bore, as the port and bulwark of
Arabia Felix."

[Footnote 35: This isthmus is said by Lieutenant Wellsted to be "about
200 yards in breadth:" perhaps a misprint for 1200, as a writer in the
_United Service Journal_, May 1840, calls it 1350 yards; and,
according to the plan in the papers laid before Parliament, it would
appear to be rather more than half a mile at the narrowest part, where
it is crossed by the Turkish wall.]

From the almost impregnable strength of its situation, and the
excellence of its harbour, which affords almost the only secure
shelter for shipping near the junction of the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean, Aden has been, both in ancient and modern times, a place of
note and importance as a central point for the commerce carried on
with the East by way of Egypt. It was known to the ancients as the
Arabian emporium, and Abulfeda, in the fourteenth century, describes
it, in his Geography, as "a city on the sea-shore, within the
district of Abiyan; with a safe and capacious port, much frequented
by ships from India and China, and by merchants and men of
wealth, not only from those countries, but from Abyssinia, the
Hedjaz, &c.;" adding, however, "that it is dry and burnt up by the
sun, and so totally destitute of pasture and water, that one of the
gates is named Bab-el-Sakiyyin, or _Gate of the Water-carriers_,
for fresh water must be brought from a distance." In somewhat
later times, when the Portuguese began to effect settlements on the
coasts of Guzerat and Malabar, and to attack the Mohammedan commerce
in the Indian Seas, the port of Aden (when, with the rest of Yemen,
then paid a nominal allegiance to the Egyptian monarchy) became the
principal rendezvous for the armaments