These Fowls, Of
Which I Have Seen Many, Are Very Tame, And When They Are Pursued,
Stretch Out Their Wings, And Run With Amazing Swiftness.
As they
have cloven feet, they sometimes strike up the stones when they run,
which gave occasion to the notion that they threw stones at the
hunters, a relation equally to be credited with those of their
eating fire and digesting iron.
Those feathers which are so much
valued grow under their wings: the shell of their eggs powdered is
an excellent remedy for sore eyes.
The burning wind spoken of in the sacred writings, I take to be that
which the natives term arur, and the Arabs uri, which blowing in the
spring, brings with it so excessive a heat, that the whole country
seems a burning oven; so that there is no travelling here in this
dreadful season, nor is this the only danger to which the unhappy
passenger is exposed in these uncomfortable regions. There blows in
the months of June, July, and August, another wind, which raises
mountains of sand and carries them through the air; all that can be
done in this case is when a cloud of sand rises, to mark where it is
likely to fall, and to retire as far off as possible; but it is very
usual for men to be taken unexpectedly, and smothered in the dust.
One day I found the body of a Christian, whom I knew, upon the sand;
he had doubtless been choked by these winds. I recommended his soul
to the divine mercy and buried him. He seemed to have been some
time dead, yet the body had no ill smell. These winds are most
destructive in Arabia the Desert.
Chapter IV
The author's conjecture on the name of the Red Sea. An account of
the cocoa-tree. He lands at Baylur.
To return to the description of the coast: sixty leagues from
Suaquem is an island called Mazna, only considerable for its ports,
which make the Turks reside upon it, though they are forced to keep
three barks continually employed in fetching water, which is not to
be found nearer than at a distance of twelve miles. Forty leagues
from hence is Dalacha, an island where many pearls are found, but of
small value. The next place is Baylur, forty leagues from Dalacha,
and twelve from Babelmandel.
There are few things upon which a greater variety of conjectures has
been offered than upon the reasons that induced the ancients to
distinguish this gulf, which separates Asia from Africa, by the name
of the Red Sea, an appellation that has almost universally obtained
in all languages. Some affirm that the torrents, which fall after
great rains from the mountains, wash down such a quantity of red
sand as gives a tincture to the water: others tell us that the
sunbeams being reverberated from the red rocks, give the sea on
which they strike the appearance of that colour. Neither of these
accounts are satisfactory; the coasts are so scorched by the heat
that they are rather black than red; nor is the colour of this sea
much altered by the winds or rains.
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