My first stroll to see the sights was confined to the little town of Tawahi, in which the hotel was situated, and which is generally known under the more general designation of Steamer Point. There is little to see in this quarter, though a crowd of natives lying out on their long wood-and-string beds in front of the tiny _cafés_, smoking the murmuring hubble-bubble, is always a picturesque sight. But it is only in the back streets that one finds this, the front of the town being faced with what is called Prince of Wales Crescent—in other words, a semicircle of ill-built stucco houses, with the exception of the handsome offices of Messrs Luke, Thomas, & Co., to whose representative, Mr Vidal, I am under many obligations for kindness. Facing these hideosities of houses is an open sandy space, in which a few young palm-trees, caged and coddled, were trying to grow. A row of black palings divides this sandy space from the beach. A hideous cab-stand of galvanised iron roofing does not add to the picturesqueness of the scene; nor, for the matter of that, does the thin filmy coal-dust that so often floats upon the breeze, to dirty one’s white clothes and render life gritty and unbearable. Yet in spite of this depressing view—in spite of the bare rocks that rise above the town—all my recollections of Tawahi are pleasant. Having explored this little township, which can be done comfortably in half an hour, I entered upon a longer undertaking,—I chartered a rickety conveyance and drove to Aden proper. The town lies in the centre of the crater of an extinct volcano, and one cannot help thinking how unpleasant it would be for the inhabitants did the eruption that must once have taken place recommence. [Illustration: _Main Pass, Aden._]