Was seldom fair, obliged
us once to remain three days at the same anchorage; and I often expected
the vessel to be wrecked, on seeing the pilot steer among the shoals in
shore: a practice in which these people have acquired great experience,
and in which they display as much boldness as they do cowardice in the
open sea.
After twenty days' voyage we reached the neighbourhood of Ras Abou
Mohammed, on the 4th of June: the boat was secured for the night with
grapplings to some coral rocks, leeward of a small island ahead of the
promontory; the pilot intending to strike across the next morning.
As I knew that Bedouins were always to be found in the harbour of Sherm,
to transport passengers by land to Tor or Suez, I wished to be set on
shore here. The road from hence to Cairo was much shorter
[p.432] than by way of Cosseir; and my low state of health rendered it
desirable to leave the vessel where I had not the slightest
accommodation, and where the fears of the plague had not yet subsided,
though no person had died on board during the last fortnight.
