ALONG THE AFRICAN COAST The chief Italian port is Massawa, a little town situated on a coral island joined to the mainland by a causeway.

Its two short railways, which connect it with the Abys¬ sinian hills, comprise about forty-eight miles of track. One road is to be continued to the town of Asmara, near which some gold mines have been opened.

The Italians have built a telegraph line from their port to Addis Abbaba, the capital of Abyssinia, and they are trying to increase their trade with that country. They are shipping considerable salt, which, strange to say, is so relished by the Abyssinians that it brings more than sugar and takes much the same place among them as candy and tobacco with us. The average Abyssinian carries a stick of rock salt with him and takes a suck of it between whiles. If he meets a friend, he asks him to have a taste of his salt stick and his friend brings out his individual stick and they take lick about. It is just as it was with snuff in the days of our forefathers, when every¬ one offered his friends a pinch of his choice macaboy.

Besides Eritrea Italy owns another and larger strip of East Africa. This is Italian Somaliland, which begins at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden and runs down to the border of the British coast possessions. We shall pass it on our way to Mombasa. Italian Somaliland, though about three times as large as Ohio, has a population only two thirds that of the city of Cleveland, and is of little value. The people, who are largely nomadic, are engaged in cattle raising and agriculture.

If you will look on the map, you will see that the Gulf of Aden seems to rest on a shelf-like projection jutting out from the African continent. This projection reaches into the Indian Ocean for a distance of seven hundred and 225