The Island
Of Shwarit Is A Gun-Shot In Length And Nearly As Much In Breadth, All
Low Land, With A Great Green Bush In The Middle, And Opposite To Its
East Side There Is A Great Rock Like An Island.
Shwarit is little more
than half a league from the main-land.
From Swakem all the way to Ras-al-nef, the countries are all
inhabited by Badwis or Bedouins, who follow the law of Mahomet, and
from Ras-al-nef, upwards to Suez and the end of this sea, the coast
all belongs to Egypt, the inhabitants of which dwell between the coast
of the Red Sea and the river Nile. Cosmographers in general call the
inhabitants of both these regions Ethiopians. Ptolomy calls them
Egyptian Arabs: Pomponius Mela and other cosmographers name them in
general Arabs; but we ought to follow Ptolomy, as he was the prince of
cosmographers. These Egyptian Arabs, who inhabit the whole country from
the mountains to the sea, are commonly called Bedwis or Bedouins, of
whose customs and manner of life we shall treat in another place.
We took in our sails on the 11th of April, and proceeded on our way by
rowing. At nine o'clock we entered a great bay called Gadenauhi[304],
about 4 leagues from Sial, the coast between trending N.W. and S.E.
rather more to the N. and S. The land over the sea, which for some
way had the appearance of a wall or trench, becomes now very mountainous
and doubled, shewing so many mountains and so close that it was
wonderful.
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