CHAPTER XXVIII ADEN VING the Red Sea at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, we came to Aden, Arabia, and thence went on down along the coast of the Indian Ocean to Mombasa. The very best of our Mocha coffee is shipped from Aden to the United States. It comes here on camels from the province of Yemen, where it is raised by the natives, each family having a few bushes about its hut and producing only enough for home use and a little for trading.

There are no big plantations and no coffee factories. When ripe the berries are gathered and dried in the sun. After this they are put up in bales, and carried on camelback over the hills to this place. They are then hulled between millstones turned by hand, and winnowed and sorted for shipment. The latter work is done by the women, who look over each grain carefully, taking out the bad ones. Labour is cheap, but the coffee has to go through many hands. It has to pay toll to the chiefs of the tribes who own the country through which it is carried, so it must be sold at high prices. For this reason we have imitations of Mocha coffee from all parts of the world.

For many years this port of Aden has belonged to John Bull, who took possession of it in 1839, and later got hold of the island of Perim in the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb also.

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