In 1835 steamers of the Indian Government having harboured in Aden, made use of it as a coaling-station; but it was, on account of the difficulty of obtaining labour, changed for Makulla, a port to the east on the Hadramaut coast. After, in 1837, being sacked by the Foudtheli tribe, the attention of the Indian Government was called to Aden by the fact that a ship flying British colours, the Deria Dowlat, being wrecked near that port, the vessel was looted, and the passengers, some of whom were native ladies of rank, insultingly treated. Captain Haines, in command of the war-sloop Coote, arrived in December, and laid a claim before the Sultan for twelve thousand dollars compensation. A plot being in the air to obtain possession of the person and papers of Captain Haines, he sailed for India, returning in October 1838 to enforce the carrying out of the cession of Aden in return for an annual payment to the Sultan of nearly nine thousand dollars a-year. Having been insultingly treated, Captain Haines commenced to blockade the port, until, in January 1839, H.M.S. Volage and H.M.S. Cruizer arrived upon the scene. A message to surrender being left unanswered, the town was bombarded and taken, the Sultan and his family escaping to Lahej, a city some thirty miles in the interior. The capture of Aden is curious as being the first addition to the Empire made during the reign of Queen Victoria. It is wonderful to notice how soon it became apparent to the natives that they had nothing to fear from the British occupation; but, in spite of this feeling of satisfaction in the eyes of the lower-class natives and the merchants, the chiefs of the Abdali tribe, in spite of solemn bonds to the contrary, attempted to retake the place. In this they failed, and, exasperated at their want of success, commenced a series of depredations upon the caravans and local property of Arabs residing in Aden. After a severe struggle in 1841, in which two Arab forts on the mainland were destroyed by the British troops, affairs remained in a more peaceful condition until, in 1846, Seyed Ismail, a fanatical Shereef, preached a holy war and the retaking of Aden from the infidels. Augmented by many local tribes, three separate attempts were made upon Aden, each of which was successfully repulsed. Like all such failures in the East, the Seyed was stamped as an impostor, and, his army having dissolved, he was killed by a Bedouin in 1848. In 1850 the crew of a man-of-war’s boat landing on the north side of the bay was attacked, and some of the number were wounded, one man being killed. A still more melancholy affair happened in February 1851, when a shooting-party was attacked at the village of Wáhat, of whom Captain Milne was killed and several others badly wounded. A series of like depredations and outrages continued to take place, until in 1858 an attack was made upon the Arabs and the battle of Sheikh Othman fought, which ended in the blowing up of the fort and the village, and