This Channel Is About A
Gun-Shot In Length, After Which The Coasts On Both Sides Recede And Form
Within
A large fine and secure harbour, about a league long and half a
league broad, deep in the middle but
Full of shoals near the land, and
it hath no fresh water. At this place it was agreed to send back all the
ships to Massua, and to proceed with only sixteen small gallies or row
boats.
Arrangements being accordingly formed, we set sail from Arekea on the
30th at noon, and came to an anchor in a port called Salaka four
leagues beyond Arekea and 96 from Swakem, the coast trending N. and
S. with a slight deviation to N.E. and S.W. The land next the sea has
many risings or hillocks, behind which there are high mountains. It must
be noted that all the land from Arekea onwards close behind the shore
puts on this uneven appearance, whereas before that it was all plain,
till in the inland it rises in both into high mountains. The 31st we
sailed from Salaka, and an hour before sunset we made fast to the
rocks of a shoal a league from the land and 17 leagues from Salaka,
being 43 leagues from Swakem. From the port of Salaka the coast begins
to wind very much; and from Raseldoaer or Ras al Dwaer, it runs very
low to the N.N.E. ending in a sandy point where there are 13 little
hillocks or knobs of stone, which the Moorish pilots said were graves.
From this point of the Calmes[294] about two leagues, the coast
runneth N.N.W. to a shoal which is 43 leagues from Swakem.
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