In the afternoon Mrs. Blair took us for a drive—the one drive it must be confessed—along the Bunder, or seashore, to the military depôt at the Isthmus.
Descending into the hollow, we saw the sapper and miners' lines, the barracks and the hospital, the church, and the bungalows of the P. and O. and Messageries' agents, who form the civilian community of Aden; then driving along the seashore, the "town," with its hotels and shops, contained in the one sweep of the Prince of Wales' Crescent.
Camels striding over the sandy desert by the roadside, and a strange mingling of desert tribes, seemed the natural accompaniments to this sand of Arabia.
We saw sturdy Arabs with their thick legs and short-set frame, Persians, Indians, Somales, Soudanese, and Nubians—the two latter tribes as black as soot—Jews, whom we knew by their funny little corkscrew curls, bobbing on either side of the face, and who are still here the down-trodden race of the 12th century, degraded and trampled upon by the Arab. Then there are a tribe of fishermen called the Eastern Pirates, and most romantic-looking with their wild, dare-devil faces, and long, smoked-yellow robe, the colour of one of their own weather-worn sails.
The Arabs have their heads plastered with white clay, found along the coast, which turns the colour of the hair to a bright yellow, making it at the same time stiff and frizzy. The Arab women have their faces covered with a thin spotted handkerchief, but even without this you would single them out by their easy swinging walk. Women of other tribes wear their hair en chignon, covered with black muslin, and red or orange saris crossed over the chest, to leave their black arms free.
We drove along the rocky rampart, which reminds me much of a smaller, a very much smaller range of Rocky Mountains. You soon grow accustomed to expect nothing but rocky surfaces and sand at Aden, and are quite surprised at the suspicion of green under the lee of the range; a little wild mignonette, snapdragon, or lupin—a pretty flower with a terrible odour—which are trying to exist there.
We pass several unenclosed and disused Mohammedan cemeteries by the roadside, and at last see the end of the three straight miles of Bunder in the rock fortress, ironically named "The last Refuge." Three hundred and seventy-five steps lead up the face of the rock to its isolated summit, where provisionless, though impregnable, the fortress would quickly surrender. By the side of this fortress we pass under a gateway, and are in "The Camp of the Isthmus." The regiment of British infantry and the native troops quartered at Aden are divided into three camps, that at the Isthmus, the camp in the Crater, and the camp at Aden itself. This foolish separation gives rise to much inconvenience and consequent grumbling amongst the officers; where the community is so small, it seems a pity they should be so unsociably distant. We watched the cricket match that was being played by the sons of the military against the sons of civilians. The ground was curiously white and glistening, from the salt which exudes after rain from the earth, and which makes it very slippery.
The stillness when driving home again was quite extraordinary, not a breath to stir a ripple on the water.
Friday, February 20th.—Every afternoon at three o'clock the danger flag is hoisted opposite the Presidency, and a great bombardment commences. The fortifications, so long needed, are in progress, and every day the entrenchments are blasted away by gunpowder. From the one nearest, the first explosion is heard, sending up clouds of smoke and a shower of stones into the air, which rattle and roll down a rocky ravine on to the beach. One report after another follows quickly, and then when these begin to decrease and die away, those from the opposite fort take up the roll of artillery, the smoke, the rattle of hailstone-shot.
We drove that afternoon to the crater—to the camp inside the crater, a unique position in the world for one, I should say. From the inevitable drive along the Bunder we turned off, and made our way up a zig-zagging hill of great steepness, towards an archway very far above us, built into the rocks. The road ended in a wall of rock, and the entrance under the gateway was not seen till you reached it, because it was immediately on the right-hand, at a sharp angle. Here then we found ourselves in "The Pass," a very grand and striking one, from the vertical height of the crags and the depth we were sunk in below them. The arch we passed under was formed to bridge over the gulf and connect the two lines of fortifications running up on either mountain-side. This pass was pickaxed out of the mountain rock, and very beautiful is the blood-red granite and the green serpentine colours it has exposed to view. Here and there we see a vertical strata of lava embedded in the rock.