This Point
Is The Most Noted In All These Seas, As Whoever Sails From Massua,
Swakem, And Other Places For Jiddah, Al Cossir, And Toro, Must
Necessarily Make This Point.
The sea for the last seventeen leagues is
of such a nature that no rules or experience can suffice
For sailing it
in safety, so that the skilful as well as the unskilful must pass it at
all hazards, and save themselves as it were by chance, for it is so full
of numerous and great shoals, so interspersed everywhere with rocks, and
so many and continual banks, that it seems better fitted for being
travelled on foot than sailed even in small boats. In the space between
Salaka and Ras-al-Dwaer, but nearer to the latter, there are three
islands forming a triangle, the largest of which is called Magarzawn,
about two leagues long and very high ground, but has no water. This
island bears N. and S. with Ras-al-Dwaer distant three leagues. The
second island lies considerably out to sea, and is called Al Mante,
and is high land without water; the third island is all sand and quite
low, being four leagues from Salaka towards Ras-al-Dwaer, but I did
not learn its name.
[Footnote 294: Meaning perhaps the sandy point near Ras-al-Dwaer. This
paragraph is very obscure, and seems to want something, omitted perhaps
by the abbreviator. - Astl.]
On the 2d of April 1541, casting loose from the before-mentioned shoal,
which is 43 leagues beyond Swakem, we rowed along the coast, and
entered a river called Farate, about four leagues from the shoal;
whence setting our sails we got into a fine haven a league from thence
called Kilfit.
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