There is
a pretty little garden at the foot of the lowest tank, but the heat
was intense in the bottom of the deep valley amongst the rocks, where
every sun-ray seemed to be collected and reflected from the white
glaring limestone, and every breath of air to be excluded. We saw a
little more of the town and the market crowded with camels, the shops
full of lion, leopard, and hyaena skins. We went to the officers'
mess-house, visited the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and
the Mohammedan mosque, and then passing through two long tunnels,
bored and blasted in the solid rock, we looked over the
fortifications. Finally, we returned to the Point again by way of the
Isthmus, and went to Government House, which gets a fresh breeze from
every quarter. They say that to-day is hotter than usual, but it is
never really very oppressive here unless there is an exceptionally hot
wind blowing from the desert, but even that is partially cooled before
it arrives. To us it appears delightful after our sultry voyage and
the heat at Penang and Singapore.
We are all agreeably disappointed with Aden, and find that it is by no
means the oven we expected; it is prettier too than I thought, the
mountains and rocks are so peaked and pointed, and although the
general effect is one of barrenness, still, if you look closely, every
crack and crevice is full of something green.
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