United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On emerging from the Canal, at Suez, we made the best of our way down the Red Sea to Suakin, where we found despatches from the senior officer of the East African station, to which we were attached, directing us to join him off the island of Socotra; and that if we did not come across him there we were to cruise along the coast between Ras Hafim and Obbia, where it was reported the Somali Arabs were getting busy with the advent of the south-west monsoon, and carting cargoes of slaves over to Oman and the Persian Gulf that is, when they saw a chance and none of our men-of-war were on the spot to stop them!
Three species of the Dar or Aloe grow everywhere in the higher regions of the Somali country. The first is called Dar Main, the inside of its peeled leaf is chewed when water cannot be procured. The Dar Murodi or Elephant's aloe is larger and useless: the Dar Digwen or Long-eared resembles that of Socotra. The Hig is called "Salab" by the Arabs, who use its long tough fibre for ropes.
Our friends now settled down for a long hop, for they would have to fly all day and all night before reaching Colombo. After a while they sighted Socotra, the little isle off the coast of Cape Guardafui, from whence comes most of the world's supply of frankincense; then leaving its rocky shores behind them they cut straight across the Persian Sea, braving whatever tropical storm might arise.
He speaks of the inhabitants of Socotra as clever magicians, who, by their enchantments, obtain the fulfilment of all their wishes as well as the power of stilling storms and tempests. Then, taking a southerly course of 1000 miles, he arrived at the shores of Madagascar. This island appeared to him to be one of the grandest in the world.
Helena, Ascension, the Seychelles, Socotra, Tristan da Cunha, the Maldives, and Madagascar. Meanwhile King Emmanuel was adopting the Venetian method of colonisation, which consisted in sending a Vice-Doge to each of its colonies for a term of two years, during which his duty was to encourage trade and to collect tribute.
"He was the first traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes: the deserts of Persia, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of Badakhshan, the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the Mongolian Steppes, cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant court that had been established by Cambaluc; the first traveller to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders, with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of Tibet, with its sordid devotees; of Burma, with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that museum of beauty and wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the Indian Archipelago, source of those aromatics then so highly prized, and whose origin was so dark; of Java, the pearl of islands; of Sumatra, with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of Nicobar and Andaman; of Ceylon, the island of gems, with its sacred mountain, and its tomb of Adam; of India the Great, not as a dreamland of Alexandrian fables, but as a country seen and personally explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds, and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun: the first in mediæval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, and the semi-Christian island of Socotra; to speak, though indeed dimly, of Zanzibar, with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant Madagascar, bordering on the dark ocean of the South, with its Ruc and other monstrosities, and, in a remotely opposite region, of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses."
The imperial orders wrere very little obeyed beyond those places where the troops were encamped; the Arabs were each year pressing closer upon the valley of the Nile, and helping the sands of the desert to defeat the labours of the disheartened husbandmen; and the Greek language, which had hitherto followed and marked the route of commerce from Alexandria to Syênê, and to the island of Socotra, was now but seldom heard in Upper Egypt.
He then turned his arms against Socotra, at the entrance of the Gulf of Aden, where he carried the fortress. The whole of the garrison were put to the sword, the only man spared being an old blind soldier, who was discovered hidden in a well. When asked how he had been able to get down there, he answered, "The blind only see the road which leads to liberty."
Thomas, Anticosti, and the Falklands, have been opened. All Indian Ocean islands with the exception of Socotra, the Cocos, Comoro, Mentawei, Nicobar, Chagos Archipelago and Kuria-Muria have been opened.
In this sea is the island of Socotra, whence come the best aloes.
Word Of The Day