The Coolidge examiner., 1936-11-20

Arabs, on the other hand, carry
most of the Red sea local traffic in
their sambuks, or baby clippers,
whose form has changed but little
with passing centuries.
The Dahalach islands, facing Mas
saua, are the center of Arab pearl
fisheries and mother of f-pearl deal
ers.
Behind the smooth surface of Mas
saua's harbor entrance stretches
broad lagoon, from which glaring
sun draws trembling vapor Back
OF the lagoon rise the jagged out
lines of what one at first takes to
be white sand dunes, quivering in
the heat like mirage, ghostly in
their detached existence. Every
where the heat rests like a curse
on all living creatures.
Yet, since man cannot escape this
heat, he has put it to work. Here
is one of the largest salt works on
the Red sea coast. What one thinks
are white sand dunes are really
huge piles of white salt!
Salt Industry Flourishes.
In wide, fiat basins connected by
canals with the Red sea, salt water
evaporates perhaps more quickly
than anywhere else in the world. In
the salt pans of Massaua, the Afri-
can sun evaporates in single day
almost 100000 gallons of water.
To this terrific heat Massaua owes
an important part of its income
from the export of salt.
From the evaporating pans ma
tive workers scrape the salt into
cone-shaped piles. Thereby the last
vestige of moisture is drained and
the space is made Immediately
ready for the next water supply. The
sun is an investment here and must
not be allowed to shine unused.
With pals and shovels, a troupe of
half-naked natives throw themselves
into the work. In an endless chain,
like the buckets on big dredge,
they go, one carrier behind another.
You see the piles of salt grow
higher minute by minute, quickly
becoming a pyramid about Is feet
high-a new addition in the row of
many hundred similar salt pyra-
midS. Here the. stand, the proper
ty and investment of the Italian
''Societa per lie Saline Eritrie," and
await the buyer. He comes, unex-
pectedly enough, from Japan!
Much of Japan's raw-salt needs
are met by Eritrea. To get this
African salt, Japan sends specially
built freight steamers to the Red
sea.
The Climb to Asmara.
In summer, Massaua Italians
speak of Asmara, the colony's cap
ltal city, as paradise.
The air route from Massaua to
ASmara is barely 40 miles. The
railroad and the highway are al
most twice as long; they wind up
to where Asmara stands nearly
5000 feet higher than Massaua.
One climbs into the four-coach
train which makes the one and only
daily run to Asmara. At first the
road lies over fairly even country,
dotted with a few palms and low
sycamores. Panic-stricken by the
noise of the locomotive, a lonely.
long-legged ostrich fees across the
fields.
Slowly now the track begins to
climb; and the temperature sinks.
Mountain slopes become greener,
and one can see fruit-bearing cac-
tus, and little later also the first
euphorbia, typical plant of the Ethi-
opian highland.
Over this easy route men now
travel at high speed. Four hundred
years ago, a certain group moved
over it slowly, painfully, in one of
the strangest undertakings in the
history of colonization. Here in the
summer of 1541 Dom Christovao da
CANA, "a strong hero, whose heart
seemed to be made of iron and
STEEL" together with 400 of his Por-
tuguese warriors, marched under
incredible hardships from Massaua
to the high plateau. Neither ad-
venture nor chance to loot drew
them; their urge was to save Chris
tianity in the worlds oldest Chris
tian kingdom.
At that time a powerful Moslem
general MOhammed Gran, the
left-handed, had decided to make
AbySsinia a MOslem land. He had
wiped out the Christian Ethiopian
emperor's army, slaughtered the
Christian population, and burned the
churches. 1t vas to check Moham-
med Gran and to aid the Christian
emperor that young ChriStoVao da
CANA, the fourth son of Vasco da
Cana and brother of the governor
of India at that time, came to AS
mara. Though da Cana was cap
tured and put to death and most OF
his faithful followers fell in battle,
4brO,ICb thair sacrifice a rare plC