The complicated entrance to Chak-Chak, or Shak-Shak as the Arabs call it, the chief port, fort, and town, has that silent, monotonous, melancholy beauty, the loveliness of death, which belongs to the creeks and rivers of those regions. The air was pure and sparkling; a light breeze played with the little blue waves; the beach, wherever it appeared, was of the purest golden hue, creamed over with the whitest of foam; and luxuriant trees of the brightest green drooped from their coralline beds over a sea, here deeply azure, there verdigris coloured by the sun shining through it upon a sand-shoal. But animated nature was wanting: we heard not a voice, we saw no inhabitant—all was profoundly still, a great green grave. A chain of islets forms the approach to a creek, below all mangrove and black vegetable mud, which stains the water, and bears roots upsticking like a system of harrows; above on both sides are rounded swelling hillocks, crowned with the cocoa and the clove. We sailed about on various tacks, and near sunset we anchored in the outer port, four or five miles distant from the town. On a wooded eminence rose the white walls and the tall tower of Fort Chak-Chak, standing boldly out from its dark green background, and apparently commanded by higher land, nowhere, however, exceeding 150 feet, while the spars of an Arab craft peered above the curtained trees. With the distinctest remembrance of Indian rivers, my companion and I could not but wonder at the scene before us.