12 deg. 35' N. the variation being 12 deg. 40'.[354] The tide, by
estimation, flows between six and seven feet at the change of the moon.
The mountain, at the foot of which this city is built, is a peninsula
jutting out to seaward, joined to the main by a narrow neck of sandy
ground, beyond which a large extent of marsh-like ground stretches
towards the interior mountains, which may be some sixteen or twenty
miles from the town.
[Footnote 353: Abyssinia, as Downton always names this north-east coast
of Africa, but which ought rather to be called the coast of Adel or
Zeyla, Abyssinia being, properly speaking, confined to the interior
mountainous country at the head of the Nile. The south-west coast of the
Red Sea indeed, from Swaken south-east to the Straits of Bab-al-Mondub,
is generally called the coast of Habash, or Abyssinia, although its
ports are all occupied by Turks or Arabs. - E.]
[Footnote 354: The latitude of Aden is in 12 deg. 45' N. and its longitude
nearly 45 deg. E. from Greenwich. - E.]
At our first anchoring, the governor sent an Arab in a canoe to view our
ships, but though called to, he refused to come aboard.
