This nautical language is so different from that of the
present day as to be almost unintelligible. They appear to have sailed
in a winding channel, in which the wind was sometimes scant, sometimes
large and sometimes contrary; so that occasionally they had to tack or
turn to windward. The strange word roamour, which has occurred once
before, may be conjectured to mean that operation in beating to
windward, in which the vessel sails contrary to the direction of her
voyage, called in ordinary nautical language the short leg of the
tack. - E.]
[Footnote 301: Signifying in Arabic the shelf of the two hands. - Astl.]
[Footnote 302: Probably that just before named Prionoto from Ptolomy,
and called cape of the mountains, because the Abyssinian mountains there
end. - E.]
At sunrise on the 10th we set sail to the N.N.E. the wind being fresh
and the sea appearing clear and navigable. When about half a league from
the point we saw, as every one thought, a ship under sail, but on
drawing nearer it was a white rock in the sea, which we were told
deceives all navigators as it did us. After this we stood N. by E. By
nine o'clock we reached an island named Connaka, and passed between it
and the main-land of Africa. This island is small and barren, about half
a league in circuit, and is about a league and a half from the main. It
resembles a vast crocodile with its legs stretched out, and is a noted
land-mark among navigators.