Having Plundered The Ships In The Harbour, They Were All Burnt;
And On The Fourth Day After Arriving At Aden,
The fleet set sail for the
mouth of the Red Sea, on their arrival at which great rejoicings were
made
By Albuquerque and the Portuguese, as being the first Europeans who
had ever navigated that celebrated sea.
The form of the Red Sea is not unlike that of a crocodile, having its
mouth at the narrow Straits of Mecca or Babelmandeb, the head being that
sea which lies between Cape Guardafu and Fartaque, and the extremity of
the tail at the town of Suez. Its general direction is from N.N.W. to
S.S.E. being 530 leagues long, and 40 over where broadest[132]. The
channel for navigation is about the middle, where it has sufficient
depth of water for the largest ships, but both sides are very shallow,
and much encumbered by sand banks and numerous small islands. No river
of any note falls into it during its whole extent. It is called by the
Moors or Arabs, Bahar Corzu or the Closed Sea, and by others the Sea
of Mecca; but by Europeans the Arabian Gulf or the Red Sea, owing to the
red colour it derives from its bottom, as was proved by a subsequent
viceroy, Don Juan de Castro, who caused some of the bottom to be dragged
up in several places, when it was found to consist of a red coralline
substance; while in other places the bottom was green, and white in
some, but mostly red.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 238 of 809
Words from 64905 to 65168
of 221361
