We were up early next morning for our first good look at Aden. What an arid place! Great mountains tower above the town to a height of several thousand feet. Not a leaf, not a tree to be seen—no crap of vegetation, no glimpse of green save only a small patch of some kind of grass, just opposite the landing stage. Truly the place is suitably immortalised in the name of that famous pipe-tune, “The Barren Rocks of Aden!” In the afternoon we went ashore to have a look at the town. The streets are very dusty and camels provide practically the only means of transport. The houses are mostly built of stone quarried out of the mountains behind, and in the native quarter the architecture is somewhat after the pagoda style. We returned to the ship to find natives already busy coaling her, and that night, as the wind was blowing the right way to carry the coal-dust over the bow, we thought we might safely sleep on the quarter-deck. Coaling went on all night and the wind must have shifted, for, when I woke in the morning, the first thing I saw was my next-door neighbour with a face like a sweep’s! He looked most awfully funny, and I started roaring with laughter at him before suddenly realising that I was myself in a similar plight! So, indeed, were we all. You never saw such a disreputable, dirty-looking lot of ruffians in your life! Hair, hands, faces and clothes simply smothered in coal-dust; and amid much mutual chaff and laughter we went below to wash. That afternoon we weighed anchor and sailed for Bombay, arrived there about a week later, and dropped anchor in the early morning while it was still dark; and coaling by native labour began again at once. Daylight revealed a huge convoy of over sixty ships assembled in the harbour and shepherded by one of our battle-ships. In the afternoon native merchants came aboard bringing deck-chairs, mosquito-nets and other less useful things for sale. By the advice of the surgeons we all supplied ourselves with mosquito-nets, and many of us also bought deck-chairs and mats. That evening the whole of the convoy mentioned above got under way, and we, together with _H.M.S. “——,”_ formed their escort. After a voyage of little more than a week we sighted _H.M.S. “——,”_ who took our place, while we, separating from the main body, took half the convoy down towards Tanga. One of the troopships was very slow and could only do about seven-and-a-half knots, which delayed the convoy a lot. Four days later we crossed the Equator, and here the time-honoured ceremony of “crossing the line” took place. All who have not been over the line before, officers and men alike, have to be ducked and submitted to various other indignities before they can be considered “freemen” of the Sea King’s domain.