ch
Swahili, and he had neither English nor much French, we had our
difficulties. I have heard Billy in talking to him scatter fragments of
these four languages through a single sentence!

For several days we drifted down a warm flat sea. Then one morning we
came on deck to find ourselves close aboard a number of volcanic
islands. They were composed entirely of red and dark purple lava blocks,
rugged, quite without vegetation save for occasional patches of stringy
green in a gully; and uninhabited except for a lighthouse on one, and a
fishing shanty near the shores of another. The high mournful mountains,
with their dark shadows, seemed to brood over hot desolation. The rusted
and battered stern of a wrecked steamer stuck up at an acute angle from
the surges. Shortly after we picked up the shores of Arabia.

Note the advantages of a half ignorance. From early childhood we had
thought of Arabia as the "burning desert"--flat, of course--and of the
Red Sea as bordered by "shifting sands" alone. If we had known the
truth--if we had not been half ignorant--we would have missed the
profound surprise of discovering that in reality the Red Sea is bordered
by high and rugged mountains, leaving just space enough between
themselves and the shore for a sloping plain on which our glasses could
make out occasional palms. Perhaps the "shifting sands of the burning
desert" lie somewhere beyond; but somebody might have mentioned these
great mountains! After examining them attentively we had to confess that
if this sort of thing continued farther north the children of Israel
must have had a very hard time of it. Mocha shone white, glittering, and
low, with the red and white spire of a mosque rising brilliantly above
it.

VI.

ADEN.

It was cooler; and for a change we had turned into our bunks, when B.
pounded on our stateroom door.

"In the name of the Eternal East," said he, "come on deck!"

We slipped on kimonos, and joined the row of scantily draped and
interested figures along the rail.

The ship lay quite still on a perfect sea of moonlight, bordered by a
low flat distant shore on one side, and nearer mountains on the other. A
strong flare, centred from two ship reflectors overside, made a focus of
illumination that subdued, but could not quench, the soft moonlight with
which all outside was silvered. A dozen boats, striving against a
current or clinging as best they could to the ship's side, glided into
the light