In December the guards had been taken from Aden in the Empress of Russia, the first of the three armed merchant cruisers to arrive at Aden. Each guard consisted of a junior NCO and six men, to be posted by an officer from their regiment who made the round trip.

The three lighthouses were (from South to North) at Abu Ail, Centre Peak and Jebel Teir, the last two having modern names, which are those on the map with this article. Before depositing the Indian guards, working parties spent a day at each site, the guards themselves being landed on 11 and 12 December.

Early in the proceedings a French cruiser had appeared and had transferred guards for the southern two lighthouses to the Empress of Russia. These had been landed on the 9^th, but it is assumed these were only temporary as no mention of them has been found thereafter.

The exact locations of the lighthouses have been taken from a marine chart of 1912. Abu Ail (see photograph, taken in 2006,) is off the northeast corner of Jazirat Zugar Island, on a small outcrop that does not show up on the writer’s edition of Google Earth.

Centre Peak is the small island just southwest of Jaza ir al Zubayr, and is on quite a high volcanic outcrop (over 340 ft above sea level), which allows a lighthouse there to be spotted 30 miles away. Jebel Teir (nowadays Jabal At Tayr) is an isolated volcanic peak northwest of Kamaran, which also allowed a lighthouse to be seen from 30 miles. Ships going up the red Sea from Aden would always pass to starboard of Abu Ail due to the presence of many isolated shoals and rocks to the west of the Hanish Islands. Once past Abu Ail ships would set a course to pass to port of Centre Peak and Jebel Teil.