The Topography Of The Red Sea Has Been Much Improved By
Bruce, In His Travels In Abyssinia, And Since Him By Lord Valentia In
His Travels In India.
- E.]
"The present voyage shews the way of sailing in these eastern seas by
the Turks, with whom we may join the Arabs and Indians; and it mentions
several particulars respecting the siege of Diu, and particularly
respecting the conduct of the Pacha, which could not be so well known to
the Portuguese; serving to rectify some things and elucidate others. It
must be observed that the soundings or depths of water, though expressed
in fathoms, which are reckoned at six feet in the British marine
service, are here to be understood as paces of five feet each. The
time is expressed according to the Italian mode of reckoning; which
begins the day at sunset, and counts the hours successively round from
one to twenty-four; instead of dividing the entire day into twice
twelve hours, as is customary with the English and other European
nations."[214] - Astl.
[Footnote 214: The Editor of Astleys Collection does not seem aware that
in the British marine, the day begins at noon, instead of the civil day
which begins at midnight. - E.]
SECTION I.
The Venetian Merchants and Mariners at Alexandria are pressed into the
Turkish service, and sent to Suez. Description of that place. Two
thousand men desert from the Gallies. Tor. Island of Soridan. Port of
Kor.
This voyage was performed by compulsion, having been forced to accompany
the eunuch Solyman Pacha, who was sent by Solyman Shah emperor of the
Turks on an expedition against the Portuguese in India. At the time when
the war broke out in 1537, between the republic of Venice and the Turks,
a fleet of trading gallies happened to be at Alexandria in Egypt,
commanded by Antonio Barbarigo, and remained there without opportunity
of trading or taking in goods till the 7th of September; on that day
Almaro Barbaro the Venetian consul, the captain Antonio Barbarigo, and
all the merchants and seamen, with every thing belonging to them, were
seized and lodged in the tower of Lances. After this, all of them that
belonged to the sea, and the author of this voyage among the rest, were
taken from the tower and sent by fifty at a time to Cairo; whence
Solyman Pacha, having selected the gunners, rowers, carpenters,
caulkers, and officers, sent them by companies to Suez to assist in
fitting out the fleet in that port against his own arrival.
Suez stands in a desert place, where grows no herb of any kind. At this
place the ships are built which are designed for India. All the timber
of which they are built, with the iron work, and every kind of tackle,
are brought from Satalia and Constantinople to Alexandria; whence they
are carried on the Nile in jerbs or barks to Cairo, and thence on the
backs of camels to Suez, where Pharaoh was drowned.
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