The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-12
 G.Esss eases

and Persia and to the rich valley of the Euphrates, at the head of the Persian gulf. The present plan is to start the road at Port Said and go eastward across the peninsula to Busra, on the Euphrates. The most of the way will be right through the desert, and the distance altogether about 1000 miles. 1 understand that the goute is a feasi- ble one, and the probability is that the efforts the Germans Are now making to reach the Persian gulf may cause the British to wake up and adopt it.
 The Arabian Peninsula.
 As to Arabia itself, l doubt -wh ether it will ever furnish a large traffic for railroads. There are certain provinces, such as Yemen, Oman and the Valley of Mesopotamia which are fairly well populated. but the wh ole peninsula has altogether not more than five millions, and these are scattered over terri tory one ird as large as the whole United States There are not score of towns of any size in all Arabia, and you can count the cities on your fingers The most of the country IS like that about Alden, consisting Of bleak. bare and rocky desert, with only a collection of black tents or matched huts to break the monotony, and with trdclSless sands reaching off into the distance, And still Arabia has coast line 1000 miles longer than the dis tance between New York ana Sah Francisco. It measures about l6O0 miles from north to south and l2OO miles from east to west Almost the whole of the United States east or the Mississippi could be crowded inside It's borders. and a considerable part or II still unexplored by white men. It Is
 
 twice as high as Mount Washington, and the tableland of Mid Is on the average more than a half mile above the sea, South of Mecca there are noun tains over 5000 feet high, and the nils here at Alden are about as high as the average elevation of the Blue Ridge In Virginia.
 Yemen. northeast of Alden. running along the Red sea, has fairly good rainfall and climate. The same IS true of Omen and Muskat. The valley or Mesopotamia is watered by the Flu pirates. and is as fertile as Egypt' but the greater part of the peninsuia is as barren as the Sahara
 The Land of Mocha Coffee.
 The very best of our Mocha coffee IS shipped from Alden to the United States' If comes here on camels from the prov ince of Yemen. It is raised there by the natives. each family having few bushes about it's house, and producing only enough for home use and little for trao- ing. There are no big plantations ara m coffee factories The berries are gatn- cred when ripe and dried In the sun. After this they are put up in bales, ana carried on camel back over the hills to this place. They are hulled between mill stones turned by hand, and are then Win nowed and sorted for shipment. The lat ter work is done by the women, who LOOK over each grain carefully and take out the bad ones Labor is cheap. but the coffee has to go through many hands. If pays toll to the chiefs of the tribes who own the country through which IL is carried and as a result 1t must De sold at high prices. For this reason we have limitations of Mocha coffee from all parts of the world. During my stay on the plantations of Brazil have seen them label bags as Mocha; and Guatemala and other coffees are sold under the same name Just now they are bringing coffees from Ceylon and Java to Aden and transshipping them here. They lie in tho warehouses for few weeks and then go forth remarked, and perhaps re- bagged, as Arabian Mocha.
 The EngIis hat Alden.
 This port of Alden has belonged to John Bull for something like 6S years. He took possession of it in 1889. and later on gobbed up the Island of Perrin, in the Strait of Rah-el-Mandeh That island is