Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/432

 offered were poor, and those who bought, even at greatly reduced prices, were probably worsted The old town of Aden dates back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, and was a celebrated commercial centre long before our Christian era; for many centuries it has been a fortified town because of its strategetical position. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries it did an enormous trade with China, India and Egypt, and its market was the clearing-house of that day for the treasures of the East. For tens of centuries, Aden has been the cockpit of fierce fights for ascendency amongst the Arabs, Abyssinians, Persians, Turks, and Egyptians A gentleman who lives at Aden says he pays $20 a month for water, which is delivered at his door in tank-wagons drawn by camels. Some of the numerous shops in Aden sell nothing but condensed and bottled water, and the price in quantity is usually a dollar per hundred gallons Many years ago, great tanks were built at Aden, to catch the precious rainfall, but these have not been in use for many years, although tourists usually visit them Aden is a great camel market, and much of the famous Mocha coffee is shipped from this point. There is just one industry in the town: the manufacture of cigarettes, which is in the hands of Greeks, and who bring their tobacco duty-free from Turkey and Egypt. The walls of the houses are built of a cheap concrete, and plastered A third-class passenger on the "Burgermeister" is a little German girl, five years old, traveling alone. She was brought on board at Dar-es-Salaam, to be taken back to Germany. Her mother died three days before, and her father was