About seven o’clock in the evening
Here Heideck had the opportunity of admiring , close at hand , the mighty fortifications which the English had constructed on the important corner of the mountain commanding the sea since the capture of Aden by them from the Turks on the 9th of January , 1839 . They also inspected the remarkable tanks , those famous cisterns which supply Aden with water , some fifty basins said to hold 30,000,000 gallons of water , whose origin is lost in the hoary mist of antiquity . They are said to have been constructed by the Persians . About seven o'clock in the evening the passengers were again on board . While the Caledonia continued her journey , they were absorbed in the perusal of the English , French , and German newspapers which they had bought at Aden . The papers were ten days old , certainly , but contained much that was new to the travellers . It was very hot in the Red Sea , and most of the first-class passengers slept on deck , as they had done just before they reached Aden .