ADEN—ITS HISTORY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

ADEN—ITS HISTORY

I low Britain Gained A

Colony

Aden. Britain's youngest colony, is selling to work to celebrate its centenary as a British possession. A Red Sea poi-t. one of the hottest positions in the world. Aden is a place of wonders of an unusual kind ; and wonders enter into its history. The laud on which it stands is the gift to Lire world of a long extinct volcano, which shaped the harbour that man has sifiee periected. We came to it by n tragic accident. Once famous as a Roman station, and associated with ancient Persia in her mightiest ertr. it passed into the possession of the Turks and tnen ot the Arabs. Exactly a century ago the crew and passengers of a British ship wrecked off the coast were barbarously illused bv the Arabs, whereupon the Arab ruler of the time offered compensation, and expressed his desire to sell the town and port to England. His son, succeeding him, refused to ratify the bargain, so a military and naval expedition was sent from India, and conquered and annexed the stronghold. That was on January 16, 1839. the date which is now to be celebrated. Under British rule the port, regained much of its former importance, an importance vastly increased with the opening of the Suez Canal. Heat and scarcity of water were always among the chief hardships of Aden', and it seemed strange that the Romans could ever have built a great shipping centre in such arid conditions. All records of their works were lost until, in the ’fifties of last century, there arrived at Aden young Lambert Playfair as an official assistant-engin-eer : he was also a crusader against the slave trade, then rampant iu those latitudes. and. moreover, he was a discoverer.

His discovery took the form ol: lost and forgotten tanks, concealed reservoirs built nearly two thousand years before by the Romans, or perhaps even earlier by the conquering Persians. Here was a new water supply ready for use as soon as repairs and developments were completed. Without such a supply the tale of Aden its a firstclass possession lying between Great Britain and India would have been a very different and less prosperous one, yet very few of us have ever heard of these wonderful tanks, or of the young Scotsman who brought them back to knowledge and human service.