Part 4

As we steam towards it, Aden appears as a rugged mass of dark 48 rock, ending in sharp edges and peaks. Along its base runs a narrow strip of level ground, and a row of mean-looking houses faces the bay and shows white against a dark and bare background. There are no trees or vegetation to relieve the gloomy monotony. Here we are at anchor, well out, off Steamer Point, as much 49 of the inner bay is shallow. At once we are surrounded by 50 small boats manned by dark-skinned Somalis from Africa, and bringing a mixed crowd of all races eager to sell us tourists’ souvenirs, skins, horns and feathers, also the product of Africa. Here too are more coaling barges as at Port Said. We land and find that the near view is hardly more attractive than the distant; but this is only an outlying suburb of the real Aden. Let us hire a carriage, as it is far too hot and dusty to walk. Our driver is a Somali, and the animal in the shafts a decayed-looking pony; while the vehicle itself threatens every moment to collapse and leave us in the sandy road. We make 51 our way along the Akaba and through the narrow and rocky 52 Main Pass to the old city. We have passed in our drive through the wall of an old crater and the town lies at the bottom, surrounded on all sides by the broken rim whose jagged edges we noticed from the sea. Here is a general view of Aden from 53 the heights above. The whole peninsula is merely the fragment of an extinct volcano. In the white town, with its straight streets, we meet Arabs, Somalis, Indians, Negroes, Greeks, Jews and British soldiers; their presence here, on a barren rock between the desert and the sea, can be understood only in the light of the past history of Aden.

Here, from the remotest antiquity, was without doubt a great port of exchange for the products of India, Arabia, Africa and the Mediterranean, by way of Egypt and the Nile. In the Middle Ages, when first we hear of it from travellers, Aden was still a strong and important city. The Portuguese, after their discovery of the Cape route to India, saw that the possession of Aden would complete their control of the Indian Ocean; but they failed in their efforts to capture it by open attack. The Turks held it for a time as part of the Yemen, the neighbouring southwest corner of Arabia; then it fell under the rule of various local chiefs or Sultans. So we found it in 1838, when we proposed to buy it from the reigning Sultan. The negotiations failed through treachery and outrages on the part of the natives; so in the following year an expedition from India took forcible possession. As a result of this, Aden is still technically a part of the Presidency of Bombay.

Aden has been occupied continuously for thousands of years, in spite of the fact that it has nothing whatever to recommend it except a harbour and a fine commercial and strategic position. The heat is intense; there is no food produced on the spot for man or beast, and very little water. In some years there is no rain at all; in others a few showers come from the Indian Ocean, with the Southwest Monsoon. The rain falls on the bare rock and runs swiftly away; the lower courses of the streams become rushing torrents for a few hours and then all is parched and dry again. More than a thousand years ago the Persians, who then ruled the city, built a series of huge tanks or reservoirs, often hewn out of the solid rock, to catch the flood-water. We can judge from their size and number that these tanks must have been built to supply a large population. In course of time 54 the tanks were allowed to fall into decay, but some, as 55 we see here, have been restored under British rule; and since the occupation of the district further inland, water has also been brought by aqueduct from the wells at the village of Sheik Othman. Sheik Othman is on the edge of the hills and far more healthy and pleasant than Aden. Here is one of the wells 56 with a camel drawing water, and here we have a typical 57 scene in the village. The trees suggest at once that the climate is different from that of Aden, and this part of the country is likely to be used more and more as a health resort for the troops of the garrison. In building the aqueduct we merely followed the example of earlier rulers, as the ruins of a similar aqueduct, centuries old, are still to be seen. The aqueduct is not enough; water is also brought in skins laden on the backs of camels, and is manufactured in condensers. In fact, water is perhaps the most rare and valuable commodity to be found in Aden. All food, too, must be imported; and here we must look not only to the back country of the Yemen, but across the sea to the neighbouring coast of Africa. Though some supplies are brought in by caravan from the country round, yet Aden could not exist without the regular shipments from Berbera and Zeila on the coast of Somaliland. There is also considerable traffic in coffee, ivory, feathers and skins from this coast, while native Somalis swarm in Aden. So that Aden, by the necessities of its existence, is closely linked with the neighbouring Horn of Africa. With no products of its own, it is a collecting centre for the trade of the coasts of Arabia and the Persian Gulf; while caravans can come in comparative safety from the Yemen country now that the British Sphere of Influence has been extended inland to the line drawn from Perim northeastward. The camel caravan is one of the ordinary sights of the town, and here in the native 58 quarter we see the market for camels, just as our English towns have their markets for horses and cattle. Many of the camels are shipped across to Somaliland, where we shall follow them 59 later; and it is interesting to see them hauled up in slings from barges to the steamer’s deck. The camels, however, do not seem to enjoy the experience.

Aden has had three stages in its history: first, a period of prosperity, in the earliest days of trade between the peoples of the Mediterranean and the East; then a period of partial decay, when the centres of trade were shifted to Western Europe and ships sailed round Africa to India and the East; finally, a revival of its former position as a commercial port of call on the restored Egyptian route, and in addition an ever-growing importance as a coaling point and centre of strategic control for the Indian Ocean. The population is increasing, like that of Gibraltar, beyond the capacity of the little peninsula; this has rendered necessary the expansion of territory inland. Even some of the troops of the garrison are now quartered beyond the isthmus. But expansion of area does not bring a corresponding growth in the supply of food for the cosmopolitan population. A prosperous Aden must in the future depend more and more on imported supplies, and this must involve still closer relations with the nearest source of supplies, the neighbouring coast of Africa.

The resources of Somaliland are not unlimited; while not Aden alone, but the whole Red Sea coast of Arabia is likely in the future to become more dependent on imported food. Let us look (46) back for a moment at these shores, before we leave the Red Sea for the open ocean. We remember that our mail steamer in its voyage found no port of call between Suez and Aden. So we drive along one of our own high roads to-day, with nothing to stop us, through open fields and uninhabited country; yet a few years hence we may find it lined with houses and shops, and with branch roads pouring their traffic into the main stream. It is possible that our sea-road may grow in the same way. Along the eastern shore the Turks are building a railway from Damascus to the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca; it has already reached Medina, and at sometime doubtless it will be continued southward to Hodeida and the towns of the Yemen. For pilgrims, the railway will make easier the journey to Mecca which every good Mohammedan strives to take once in his life. For the Government of Turkey it has another use: it will strengthen their control over the southern corner of Arabia, a control which is never too secure. The result must be more people and more trade on the coast strip of Arabia, and need for supplies of food greater than the neighbouring country can produce. We may see here in the future the problem of Aden on a large scale, and again we must look across the sea.

Jeddah is the port of Mecca; almost opposite Jeddah, on the African coast, is Port Sudan, the gate of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the terminus of the Sudan Government railway system, which crosses the desert to the Nile and opens up the country from Wadi Haifa in the north to Sennar in the southeast and El Obeid in the west. This great region, with its centre at Khartum, is entirely dependent for the bulk of its trade on the railway and the seaport. As this country develops, it may find a market for part of its products on the coast of Arabia, while the rest will join the main movement through the Canal to Europe. That portion of our high road which runs through the Mediterranean owes much of its importance to the active life of the neighbouring coasts; the Red Sea, by contrast, is a mere passage through the desert which separates Europe from Asia. But the railway is conquering the desert, and in the future this portion also of the chain between West and East will take some share in the busy traffic of the whole.

LECTURE III

THE INDIAN OCEAN

We leave Aden, with a mixed cargo of camels and Somalis, and steam southward for a hundred and fifty miles across the Gulf to visit the Horn of Africa, a region less known to Europeans, before the present century, than much of the distant interior of the vast Continent. We land at Berbera on the flat coast: 1 behind the little pier are the white houses of the European town, and in the background a long mountain range. Lying off shore at anchor is a vessel which attracts our attention at once, as 2 it reminds us of England; it is a sailing ship of the old type, far more graceful than our steamer, resembling the hulks which may be seen moored in some of our ports, with their sailing days long past. But here it is still in full use; it has lost its English name and become the Shah Jehan, and trades under the Persian flag, bringing dates once a year from Muscat on the Gulf of Oman. The seasonal visit of this ancient ship may serve to remind us that we are merely newcomers in this quarter of the world, and that it had its own busy life long before our arrival or the age of steamships.

In Berbera we find the Somali in his natural state. The native 3 town is a mere collection of primitive huts, made of mats, rags, mud and sticks; it looks like an encampment rather than a town; but we must not be too ready to judge the native by his house, as we shall see later that he has a good reason for not building a more permanent home.

Somaliland is rather larger than England and Wales together, yet a short excursion inland to the mountains will tell us nearly all that we want to know about the country and its inhabitants. Our way lies southward, across a desolate, stony plain, studded with dry thorn bushes; it does not seem an inviting country. The plain is narrow here, but further west towards Zeila it broadens out to over fifty miles. A few miles out, where we touch the foothills, we may be surprised to find springs of warm water, issuing from the limestone rock. On these Berbera depends for its existence, as there is no rainfall on the plain 4,5 worth considering. Here we see one of these springs and here is the reservoir. Leaving the plain we mount a steep slope and come out on a plateau; it is even more bare and stony than the 6 plain below. In front our track leads towards a long ridge, five thousand feet high, the Gorlis Mountains; on our left is the still higher range of Wagga. We cross the plateau and climb up the pass to Sheikh; here we see our path by a rocky torrent 7 bed. We must carry with us our own camp, as we shall find little shelter in this wild country and few inhabitants; though when we have pitched our tent for the night, we have a visit 8 from a native, armed with spear and shield, and curious to make the acquaintance of the white intruder. We notice that he seems very suspicious of the camera. At Sheikh we are in the heart of the mountains. From the bungalow of the political officer we 9 have a fine view down the long, steep pass, and can form some idea of the nature of the rugged country through which we 10 are travelling. Here is another view across the mountain ridges.

To reach the highest view-point we must ride eastward to Wagga, across another part of the plateau, dry and desolate as before. Dotted here and there are gigantic red pillars; these strange-looking shapes are not rocks but ant hills; they are 11 sometimes large enough to give us a little shade from the burning sun of the desert. We can judge the size of the hill before us by comparison with our camel escort; and here is a closer 12 view of another to help us. Far away in the background we can distinguish the Wagga Mountains. The stony slopes of Wagga 13 are less bare than the plateau, though the vegetation again is mostly thorns and aloes, with here and there a few cedars. After a long scramble we reach the summit, up among the clouds, six thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here are two views 14 from the summit, one towards the east, the other towards 15 the west; and here is our native guide, Giringh by name, 16 pointing northwards to where, over forty miles away, we can just catch a glimpse of the Gulf of Aden.

Let us try to realize where we are standing. If we travel 17 southward from Wagga or from Sheikh, we go downhill, but we find that the dried-up beds of the streams are sloping away from the sea. We have crossed the main water-parting of the country. The mountain ridges which we have scaled are merely the steep broken edges of a great highland block which falls gently southwards to a broad plateau, without hills or streams, a monotony of stones, red earth, dust and dense thorn scrub. In the dry season we may travel for a week or ten days together and find not a drop of water. On the caravan routes are a few wells, such as we 18 see here, but many of these dry up, and we have to dig for a few mouthfuls of warm, dirty water in the liquid mud at the bottom. This is the _Haud_; it belongs partly to Britain, partly to Italy and partly to Abyssinia, though in such a country boundaries have little or no meaning; they are merely imaginary lines drawn from a few known points through the unexplored area.

On the mountain slopes and on the plains at the foot are the courses of many rivers and streams. These are marked on the map, but few are permanent. In the rains they are rushing torrents, overflowing the channels which are too narrow to contain them and spreading out into wide unhealthy marshes; in the dry season they are mere channels or _tugs_, with a few stagnant pools in the deepest parts. The rains are of the tropical kind, beginning in April and going on, with one break, through the summer. The winter months are almost rainless, and the smallest annual fall is on the coast.

The peculiarities of the plateau and the seasonal rainfall have been largely responsible for the shaping of the Somali. He is essentially a nomad; all his property is moveable and consists of flocks and herds and camels. It is true that there are remains of stone buildings, and deep wells in the rock, especially further inland; but these are not the work of the present-day Somali; his house is as easily moved as his cattle. In the dry weather we 19 see the herds collected round the permanent wells and on the banks of the few streams where some water and pasture are still to be found. Notice the primitive native method of getting 20 at the water. A man is handing it up in a jar or skin, while another pours it into a trough for the cattle. The summer rains bring vegetation to the dry steppe, and forthwith the people with their animals migrate to the cooler air and fresh pasture of the plateau. Berbera and the coast towns empty themselves in this way in the hot weather, so that there is a great change in the size of the population at different seasons of the year. There is no real agriculture until we reach the borders of Abyssinia and the river valleys in the far south and west.

We can now appreciate the importance of the camel in the life of the Somali. Further inland, towards Harrar, where there is more pasture, the mule is to be found; but for the dry region of the _Haud_ the camel is the only efficient beast of burden. Here we have him carrying all the goods of his owner, fastened not to a 21 saddle but to mats strapped round him. He appears to enjoy feeding on thorns and will travel for days together without water. He is also looked on as a great delicacy to be eaten by those who can afford it.

The natives of Somaliland are very different in race from the African people who live further south. Here is a group of 22 men, posed for the camera, with their little round shields and long, broad-bladed spears; and here are some mounted 23 warriors. The Somali is a born fighter, and his weapons are never very far away from him. The Somalis are an old Hamitic people, akin to the early inhabitants of Egypt and the races of the Mediterranean coasts of Africa. There is also a later admixture of Arab blood, due to the nearness of Arabia and the spread of Arab power in the Middle Ages all along the eastern coast of Africa. They themselves claim Arab descent and show much of the love of independence which is found among the Arabs. In religion, too, they are fanatical Mohammedans, and they have never really been conquered by an invader from without. For a few years the Government of Egypt occupied the coast towns and some posts in the interior in the neighbourhood of Harrar. When the Egyptians retired, in 1884, we at once occupied part of the coast as a dependency of Aden. About the same time the French took the corner opposite Perim, while a long strip of coast on either side fell to Italy. Behind all these is the independent native kingdom of Abyssinia. For a time British Somaliland was governed as a part of Aden; there was good reason for this since the country is of small value except in relation to the control of the Red Sea route, and is also entirely cut off on the land side from the rest of our African territory. It is now under the Colonial Office and is administered by a Commissioner, like so many of our smaller Crown Colonies and Protectorates.

To keep order in the coast towns there is a force of native Civil Police, under a European officer: here are some of 24 the havildars, and here the whole body in review order; 25 but we see that, unlike our own police, they are armed with rifles. Somaliland is not a peaceful country, and police alone are not enough; so a military force is necessary. This consisted formerly of a battalion of the King’s African Rifles, recruited partly from the natives and partly from India. Here are the drummers and buglers, all natives, with a native 26 officer; and here is a whole company of Rifles on parade. 27 They are mounted on mules, and the European officer alone is on horseback. This native force has been disbanded and replaced by a contingent of Indian troops. We have also, in the past, been compelled to employ British and Indian troops for expeditions up country, to deal with the followers of a Mohammedan Mullah who proclaimed a _jihad_, or holy war, a few years ago, and raided first the Christians of Abyssinia and then the natives in our own territory. The Mullah was only copying on a larger scale the usual methods of the tribes of the interior; since the chief amusement of the Somali consists in annexing the property of his neighbours, whenever and wherever he can find the opportunity. The geography of the country is all in favour of the native raider and against the civilized troops which attempt to catch him. In the dry season, when the Somali is for a time a fixture in the neighbourhood of the wells, it is almost impossible to move a considerable force up country, owing to the want of food and water for men and animals on the march. When the rains come, the whole country is open for the game of hide-and-seek, and in this the white man is no match for the quick-moving native, who is troubled by no problem of transport and is a nomad born and bred. The land itself fights for the Somali; so that effective European control is limited to the coast, except where the French have pushed inland with the railway from Jibouti to the neighbourhood of Harrar. None the less, the occupation of the coast towns, Berbera, Bulhar and Zeila, is not entirely useless, since these are the ends of the caravan routes from Abyssinia and the interior. Here the animals, skins, gums and other wild products of the country are exchanged for the rice of India, the dates of Arabia, and the cottons of Europe and America which form the sole dress of the native. For the rest, the Somali is likely to be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of his native customs; his chief visitor will be the sportsman and the naturalist, as the land abounds in wild game and is the home of many strange plants and animals which are not to be met with elsewhere in Africa.

We have made a brief survey of British Somaliland, and though much is not yet explored, yet it is not likely to differ greatly from the part which we have seen. There will be the same red dust and monotonous stony plain with its thorn bushes and dry stream-beds. In some parts, by way of variety, the thorn will grow so dense as to be impenetrable; in others it will disappear, and we shall find pure desert. Only a Somali or a camel could live and thrive in such a country. So we return to the coast and continue our voyage. Again we must turn aside from the 28 direct road across the ocean to India and follow for a time the long coast of Africa. We round Cape Guardafui, now the extreme tip of the Horn; but the sea here is shallow, and the islands which continue the line of the headland must at some remote time have been joined to the continent. Of these islands, Socotra, long and narrow, about a hundred miles from end to end, alone need be noticed. It is a British Protectorate, controlled from Aden, though nominally dependent on the little Arabian state of Kishin. It is without harbours or trade, and our only interest there is to prevent its occupation by any other Power which might dispute with us the control of the Red Sea entrance. Aden, Somaliland, Perim and Socotra have all the same place in our policy; they have no meaning except in relation to the control of the sea.