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Imports
Overland in the late 1870s
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One advantage of having easily
controlled access to Aden from the interior was that it
was a simple matter to record how many camel-loads of
goods were being brought into Aden itself, whether from
Sheikh Othman or Lahej, or from the Dthala area, or from
the Yemen. The Victorians were keen on very detailed and
accurate statistics; all figures being mentioned in this
short article are from the second half of the 1870s. On
average there were around 22,000 to 24,000 camel-loads a
month – a surprisingly high figure.
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‘Firewood sellers.’
A high-quality photo by Aden Photographer,
Coutinho, taken around 1898. |
As
far as loads were concerned all goods fell into
one of seven categories: coffee, fruit &
vegetables, fodder, grain & pulse, wood &
charcoal, drinking water and miscellaneous.
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Most of the coffee was for onward
export by sea from Aden, being brought in from the
Yemen. Monthly totals varied with the growing season and
the harvest – from around 500 to 1,500 camel-loads. It
had been expected that the introduction of a regular
steamer plying between Hodeida and Aden introduced some
time between 1875 and 1879 would have reduced the
quantity of coffee being carried overland, but in fact
appreciably more arrived in 1879 than four years
previously. Whether this was due to a bumper harvest or
an expanding demand is not known.
Some of the fruit was also exported
– one gathers that the Turkish garrisons in Eritrea and
Abyssinia had a particular penchant for dates. There was
much less variation in monthly totals than for coffee –
700 camel-loads being about the average. The other
commodities, except perhaps for some items under
‘miscellaneous’, were being brought in to meet the
day-to-day requirements of the Aden community. The
demand for fodder was pretty constant – in 1875 around
5,500 loads a month, this dropping to around 4,500 by
1879, probably due to a decline in the equine population
due to horse sickness. The monthly demand for wood &
charcoal hardly varied, in 1879 averaging close to 5,700
loads a month. These were brought to the wood market in
Crater, many postcards of which can be found, dating
from around 1900. As can be imagined, due to the timing
and success or otherwise of the harvest, amounts of
grain and pulse varied quite considerably but with a
monthly average of around 2,500 camel-loads.
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The
biggest variation of all was in drinking water,
presumably being brought in from Sheikh Othman.
[But possibly only the short distance from the
end of the pipe-line which it is believed was
just outside the barrier gate North of the
Isthmus defensive position.] |
‘Caravan at rest at Lahej’. From
around 1905.
The irregular shapes left
foreground might be fodder. Centre foreground is
a trunk. One of the two regular-shaped sacks
behind the trunk has initials on the sack and
both appear to have what look like labels on the
side of the sack. |
In most
months the average was around 6,000 camel-loads; however
in February 1875 the number was only around 2,500 and in
August 1879 over 13,000.
One can only surmise that the
former was due to water being available from the
Tawela Tanks following heavy
rains and the latter due to an exceptionally hot summer,
the month of July having also necessitated a quantity
double the average. Looking at the quantities of other
commodities being brought in during these two
exceptional months for water one notices that loads of
fodder were 50% down and those for grain and pulse a
third less than an otherwise consistent average. The
assumption being that the additional camels needed for
water duties had to be taken from those normally
transporting the other commodities. To complete the
picture ‘miscellaneous’ loads were clocked in at around
500 a month. |
