We Immediately Made Sail Towards Her, Which She Perceiving,
Got Under Weigh For Aden.
Between nine and ten, by firing a shot, she
struck her top-sails, and sent her boat to us, saying she belonged to
the Zamorin, or King of Calicut, whence they had been forty days.
The
nakhada, or commander of this ship, was Abraham Abba Zeinda,[361] and
her cargo, according to their information, consisted of tamarisk,[362]
three tons; rice, 2300 quintals; jagara, or brown sugar, forty bahars;
cardamoms, seven bahars; dried ginger, four and a half quintals; pepper,
one and a half ton; cotton, thirty-one bales, each containing five or
six maunds. Her crew and passengers consisted of seventy-five persons,
of whom twenty were appointed to bale out water and for other purposes
below, eight for the helm, four for top and yard and other business
aloft, and twenty boys for dressing the provisions, all the rest being
merchants and pilgrims. Her burden was 140 tons. Having carefully
examined them, and finding they belonged to a place which had never
wronged our nation, I only took out two tons of water, with their own
permission, and dismissed them, giving them strict injunctions not to go
to Aden, or I would sink their ship. So they made sail, standing farther
out from the land, but going to leewards, we were forced to stand off
and on all day and night, lest in the night she might slip into Aden.
[Footnote 361: Perhaps rather Ibrahim Abu Zeynda, or Sinda. - Astl. I.
421. b.]
[Footnote 362: Probably turmeric. - E.]
Every ship we saw, before we could come to speak them, had advice sent
by the governor of Aden to inform them of us. When the Calicut ship was
under our command, the governor sent off a boat, manned with Arabs,
having on board two Turkish soldiers of the garrison, who had formerly
been instruments of Abdal Rahman[363] aga, to bind and torture our men
whom they had betrayed. On seeing our men, whom they had used so ill,
they were in great doubt what usage they might now receive, as their
guilty conscience told them they merited no good treatment at our hands.
They brought some fruit to sell, and, I suppose, came as spies to see
what we were doing. At the first sight of our men, whom they knew, they
would fain have put off their boat again, but I would not permit them,
causing them to be reminded of their former behaviour to our men, when
in their hands; and when I thought them sufficiently terrified, I
ordered them to be told, that they should now see how far our nation
differed from the cruelty of Turks, who had most barbarously and
injuriously used our men, without giving any cause of offence, whom they
had betrayed by fair promises, yet I should now dismiss them without
harm. They immediately departed, making many fair promises of sending us
refreshments. They accordingly sent off next day a boat loaded with
fish; but we were too far off for them to reach us, as we were obliged
to put the Calicut ship to leeward towards the Red Sea.
[Footnote 363: In Purchas called Abdraheman; perhaps the name was Abd
Arrahman. - Astl. I. 421. c.]
The morning of the 14th, the wind at east, we descried another ship of
like burden with the former bound for Aden, which, about ten o'clock,
a.m. we forced to come to anchor. I learnt that she was from Pormean,
a town not far from Kuts Nagone,[364] a place tributary to the Great
Mogul, who had despised our king, and abused our nation. The nakhada
of this ship was a Banian; and being fearful, if any other ship should
approach Aden, I must either leave the one or the other, I therefore
made haste to search her by my own people. With great labour, before
darkness overtook us, we had out of her six packs of coarse dutties,
of six corges a pack; other thirty-six bales, containing thirty-six
corges of coarse dutties; one small bale of candekins-mill, or
small pieces of blue calico; with about thirty or more white bastas,
and a little butter and lamp oil. So far as we could discover for that
night, the rest of her lading consisted of packs of cotton-wool, as we
term it, which we proposed to examine farther next day.
[Footnote 364: According to the editor of Astley's Collection, I. 421.
d. Kuts Nagone is a place in the peninsula of Guzerat, not far from the
western cape. The western cape of Guzerat is Jigat Point; but no such
places are to be found in our best modern maps, and the only name
similar is Noanagur, on the south side of the Gulf of Cutch; whence
Kuts-Nagone in the text may be a corruption of Cutch-Noanagur. - E.]
This day Moharim aga, who was now mir, or governor of Aden, sent me a
present of eggs, limes, and plantains; but I sent back word by the
messenger, that the various intolerable injuries done to my friends and
nation at this place last year, had occasioned my present approach, to
do my nation and myself what right I might, to the disturbance and
injury of the Turks; and as my coming was not to ask any favour from
them, I would not accept any of their dissembled presents; for, as they
cut our throats when we came to them in friendship, we could expect no
favour now when we came in declared enmity. Wherefore, having received
what was useful for my people, I had sent back what I considered the
things to be worth. There came off also a boat, with store of fresh
fish, which I caused to be bought, always making the bringer to eat part
of what he brought, for fear of poison.
The 27th April we descried a sail plying to the eastwards, between us
and the shore, which, being detained by the pinnace, proved to be a
jelba belonging to Shaher, bound homewards with grain and other
commodities, among which was some opium, and having several pilgrims
from Mecca, as passengers on their way home.
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