This cut, from a sketch by Dr. Kirk, gives an excellent idea of Aden as
seen by a ship approaching from India.
The large plate again, reduced from
a grand and probably unique contemporary wood-engraving of great size,
shows the impression that the city made upon European eyes in the
beginning of the 16th century. It will seem absurd, especially to those
who knew Aden in the early days of our occupation, and no doubt some of
the details are extravagant, but the general impression is quite consonant
with that derived from the description of De Barros and Andrea Corsali:
"In site and aspect from the seaward," says the former, "the city forms a
beautiful object, for besides the part which lies along the shore with its
fine walls and towers, its many public buildings and rows of houses rising
aloft in many stories, with terraced roofs, you have all that ridge of
mountain facing the sea and presenting to its very summit a striking
picture of the operations of Nature, and still more of the industry of
man." This historian says that the prosperity of Aden increased on the
arrival of the Portuguese in those seas, for the Mussulman traders from
Jidda and the Red Sea ports now dreaded these western corsairs, and made
Aden an entrepot, instead of passing it by as they used to do in days of
unobstructed navigation. This prosperity, however, must have been of very
brief duration.
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