We Continued
Our Course Towards The Red Sea, Meeting With Nothing In Our Passage
But A Gelve, Or Kind Of Boat, Made Of Thin Boards, Sewed Together,
With No Other Sail Than A Mat.
We gave her chase, in hopes of being
informed by the crew whether there were any Arabian vessels at
The
mouth of the strait; but the Moors, who all entertain dismal
apprehensions of the Franks, plied their oars and sail with the
utmost diligence, and as soon as they reached land, quitted their
boat, and scoured to the mountains. We saw them make signals from
thence, and imagining they would come to a parley, sent out our boat
with two sailors and an Abyssin, putting the ships off from the
shore, to set them free from any suspicion of danger in coming down.
All this was to no purpose, they could not be drawn from the
mountain, and our men had orders not to go on shore, so they were
obliged to return without information. Soon after we discovered the
isle of Babelmandel, which gives name to the strait so called, and
parts the sea that surrounds it into two channels; that on the side
of Arabia is not above a quarter of a league in breadth, and through
this pass almost all the vessels that trade to or from the Red Sea.
The other, on the side of Aethiopia, though much larger, is more
dangerous, by reason of the shallows, which make it necessary for a
ship, though of no great burthen, to pass very near the island,
where the channel is deeper and less embarrassed.
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