ABSTRACT
To Easterner and Westerner alike the Red Sea remains an unpopular and even fearful highway. This line of fracture in the ancient skull of the earth's surface was barred to the trading Indian for many sailing centuries at one end, and only opened to the white man at the other after Herculean efforts; but the brown borderland people, smearing themselves with indigo against the sun, have long ago found out the secrets of its fascinations, and trade on them: they sail their vessels quickly from Africa to Araby and back again, nosing out commerce and currents at night, rather than navigating the torrid lengths from Suez to Bab-el-Mandeb after the fashion set by steamships of the West.
