The Emir Ferhan, governor of the town, was an Abyssinian slave, who invited me on shore, and we dined together on very excellent provision, dressed according to their custom. He said the country near the shore was desert, but a little within land, or where the roots and gravel had fixed the sand, the soil produced every thing, especially if they had any showers of rain. It was so long since I had heard mention of a shower of rain, that I could not help laughing, and he seemed to think that he had said something wrong, and begged so politely to know what I laughed at, that I was obliged to confess. “The reason, said I, Sir, is an absurd one. What passed in my mind at that time was, that I had travelled about two thousand miles, and above twelve months, and had neither seen nor heard of a shower of rain till now, and though you will perceive by my conversation that I understand your language well, for a stranger, yet I declare to you, the moment you spoke it, had you asked, what was the Arabic for a shower of rain, I could not have told you. I declare to you, upon my word, it was that which I laughed at, and upon no other account whatever.” “You are going, says he, to countries where you will have rain and wind, sufficiently cold, and where the water in the mountains is harder than the dry land, and people stand upon it[196]. We have only the remnant of their showers, and it is to that we owe our greatest happiness.”
I was very much pleased with his conversation. He seemed to be near fifty years of age, was exceedingly well dressed, had neither gun nor pistol about him, not even a knife, nor an Arab servant armed, though they were all well dressed; but he had in his court-yard about threescore of the finest horses I had for a long time seen. We dined just opposite to them, in a small saloon strowed with India carpets; the walls were covered with white tiles, which I suppose he had got from India; yet his house, without, was a very common one, distinguished only from the rest in the village by its size.
He seemed to have a more rational knowledge of things, and spoke more elegantly than any man I had conversed with in Arabia. He said he had lost the only seven sons he had, in one month, by the small-pox: And when I attempted to go away, he wished I would stay with him some time, and said, that I had better take up my lodgings in his house, than go on board the boat that night, where I was not perfectly in safety. On my seeming surprised at this, he told me, that last year, a vessel from Mascatte, on the Indian Ocean, had quarrelled with his people; that they had fought on the shore, and several of the crew had been killed; that they had obstinately cruized in the neighbourhood, in hopes of reprisals, till, by the change of the monsoon, they had lost their passage home, and so were necessarily confined to the Red Sea for six months afterwards; he added, they had four guns, which they called patareroes, and that they would certainly cut us off, as they could not miss to fall in with us. This was the very worst news that I had ever heard, as to what might happen at sea. Before this, we thought all strangers were our friends, and only feared the natives of the coast for enemies; now, upon a bare defenceless shore, we found ourselves likely to be a prey to both natives and strangers.
Our Rais, above all, was seized with a panic; his country was just adjoining to Mascatte upon the Indian Ocean, and they were generally at war. He said he knew well who they were, that there was no country kept in better order than Mascatte; but that these were a set of pirates, belonging to the Bahareen; that their vessels were stout, full of men, who carried incense to Jidda, and up as far as Madagascar; that they feared no man, and loved no man, only were true to their employers for the time. He imagined (I suppose it was but imagination,) that he had seen a vessel in the morning, (a lug-sail vessel, as the pirate was described to be,) and it was with difficulty we could prevail on the Rais not to sail back to Jidda. I took my leave of the Emir to return to my tent, to hold a consultation what was to be done.
Konfodah is in the lat. 19° 7´ North. It is one of the most unwholesome parts on the Red Sea, provision is very dear and bad, and the water, (contrary to what the Emir had told me) execrable. Goats flesh is the only meat, and that very dear and lean. The anchorage, from the castle, bears north-west a quarter of a mile distant, from ten to seven fathoms, in sand and mud.
On the 14th, our Rais, more afraid of dying by a fever than by the hands of the pirates, consented willingly to put to sea. The Emir’s good dinners had not extended to the boat’s crew, and they had been upon short commons. The Rais’s fever had returned since he left Jidda, and I gave him some doses of bark, after which he soon recovered. But he was always complaining of hunger, which the black flesh of an old goat, the Emir had given us, did not satisfy.
We sailed at six o’clock in the morning, having first, by way of precaution, thrown all our ballast over-board, that we might run into shoal water upon the appearance of the enemy. We kept a good look-out toward the horizon all around us, especially when we sailed in the morning. I observed we became all fearless, and bold, about noon; but towards night the panic again seized us, like children that are afraid of ghosts; though at that time we might have been sure that all stranger vessels were at anchor.
We had little wind, and passed between various rocks to the westward, continuing our course S. S. E. nearly, somewhat more easterly, and about three miles distant from the shore. At four o’clock, noon, we passed Jibbel Sabeia, a sandy island, larger than the others, but no higher. To this island the Arabs of Ras Heli send their wives and children in time of war; none of the rest are inhabited. At five we passed Ras Heli, which is the boundary between Yemen, or Arabia Felix, and the [197]Hejaz, or province of Mecca, the first belonging to the Imam, or king of Sana, the other to the Sherriffe lately spoken of.
I desired my Rais to anchor this night close under the Cape, as it was perfectly calm and clear, and, by taking a mean of five observations of the passage of so many stars, the most proper for the purpose, over the meridian, I determined the latitude of Ras Heli, and consequently the boundary of the two states, Hejaz and Yemen, or Arabia Felix and Arabia Deserta, to be 18° 36´ north.
The mountains reach here nearer to the sea. We anchored a mile from the shore in 15 fathoms, the banks were sand and coral; from this the coast is better inhabited. The principal Arabs to which the country belongs are Cotrushi, Sebahi, Helali, Mauchlota, and Menjahi. These are not Arabs by origin, but came from the opposite coast near Azab, and were Shepherds, who were stubborn enemies to Mahomet, but at last converted; they are black, and woolly-headed. The mountains and small islands on the coast, farther inland to the eastward, are in possession of the Habib. These are white in colour, rebellious, or independent Arabs, who pay no sort of obedience to the Imam, or the Sherriffe of Mecca, but occasionally plunder the towns on the coast.