The proper name of the entrance into the Red Sea is Bab-al-Mondub,
usually called Babelmandel, signifying the gates of lamentation, owing
to the dangers of the navigation outwards to India.
- E.]
We departed from Mokha on the 18th July, repassing the straits, where we
lost two anchors. From thence we sailed to Socotora, and about the 5th
August cast anchor opposite the town of Saiob, or Sawb, where the
king resides. One of our merchants went ashore, desiring leave to
purchase water, goats, and other provisions, which he refused, alleging
that the women were much afraid of us; but if we would remove to another
anchorage about five leagues off, we might have every thing his country
afforded. We accordingly went there, where we bought water, goats,
aloes, dragon's blood, &c. We set sail from Socotora on the 18th.[289]
[August?], and on the 28th came to Moa,[290] where one of the natives
told us we might have a pilot for 20 dollars to bring us to the road of
Surat, but our wilful master refused, saying that he had no need of a
pilot.
[Footnote 289: This date is inexplicable, but was probably the 18th of
August; the month being omitted by the editor of Astley's Collection, in
the hurry of abbreviation. - E.]
[Footnote 290: Jones says they fell in with the coast of Diu about eight
leagues to the eastward of that place, and steering seven leagues more
along the coast, came to anchor at a head-land, where they sent the
skiff ashore, and bought sheep and other things, and were here offered a
pilot to Surat for seven dollars. Fifteen leagues east from Diu would
bring them to near Wagnagur, almost directly west from Surat river, on
the opposite coast of the Gulf of Cambay. Moa was probably a village
on the coast. - E.]
The 29th [August?] we proceeded, thinking to hit the channel for the bar
of Surat, getting first from ten fathoms into seven, and afterwards into
six and a half. We now tacked westwards, and deepened our water to
fifteen fathoms; but the next tack brought us into five. When some of
the company asked the master where he proposed going? he answered, the
vessel must go over the height. The ship immediately struck, which I
told him of. On hearing this he cried out, who dares to say the ship has
struck and had scarcely spoken these words when she struck again with
such violence that the rudder broke off and was lost.[291] We then came
to anchor, and rode there for two days; after which our skiff was split
in pieces, so that we now only had our long-boat to help us in our
utmost need. But our people made a shift to get the pieces of the skiff
into the ship, which our carpenter contrived to bind together with
waldings, so that, in the extremity of our distress, she brought sixteen
people on shore.
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