We caught a great quantity of fine fish this night with a line, some of them weighing 14 pounds. The best were blue in the back, like a salmon, but their belly red, and marked with blue round spots. They resembled a salmon in shape, but the fish was white, and not so firm.
In the morning of the 6th we made the Jaffateen Islands. They are four in number, joined by shoals and sunken rocks. They are crooked, or bent, like half a bow, and are dangerous for ships sailing in the night, because there seems to be a passage between them, to which, when pilots are attending, they neglect two small dangerous sunk rocks, that lie almost in the middle of the entrance, in deep water.
I understood, afterwards, from the Rais, that, had it not been from some marks he saw of blowing weather, he would not have come in to the Jaffateen Islands, but stood directly for Tor, running between the island Sheduan, and a rock which is in the middle of the channel, after you pass Ras Mahomet. But we lay so perfectly quiet, the whole night, that we could not but be grateful to the Rais for his care, although we had seen no apparent reason for it.
Next morning, the 7th, we left our very quiet birth in the bay, and stood close, nearly south-east, along-side of the two southermost Jaffateen Islands, our head upon the center of Sheduan, till we had cleared the eastermost of those islands about three miles. We then passed Sheduan, leaving it to the eastward about three leagues, and keeping nearly a N. N. W. course, to range the west side of Jibbel Zeit. This is a large desert island, or rock, that is about four miles from the main.
The passage between them is practicable by small craft only, whose planks are sewed together, and are not affected by a stroke upon hard ground; for it is not for want of water that this navigation is dangerous. All the west coast is very bold, and has more depth of water than the east; but on this side there is no anchoring ground, nor shoals. It is a rocky shore, and there is depth of water every where, yet that part is full of sunken rocks; which, though not visible, are near enough the surface to take up a large ship, whose destruction thereupon becomes inevitable. This I presume arises from one cause. The mountains on the side of Egypt and Abyssinia are all (as we have stated) hard stone, Porphyry, Granite, Alabaster, Basaltes, and many sorts of Marble. These are all therefore fixed, and even to the northward of lat. 16°, where there is no rain, very small quantities of dust or sand can ever be blown from them into the sea. On the opposite, or Arabian side, the sea-coast of the Hejaz, and that of the Tehama, are all moving sands; and the dry winter-monsoon from the south-east blows a large quantity from the deserts, which is lodged among the rocks on the Arabian side of the Gulf, and confined there by the north-east or summer-monsoon, which is in a contrary direction, and hinders them from coming over, or circulating towards the Egyptian side.
From this it happens, that the west, or Abyssinian side, is full of deep water, interspersed with sunken rocks, unmasked, or uncovered with sand, with which they would otherwise become islands. These are naked and bare all round, and sharp like points of spears; while on the east-side there are rocks, indeed, as in the other, but being between the south-east monsoon, which drives the sand into its coast, and the north-west monsoon which repels it, and keeps it in there, every rock on the Arabian shore becomes an Iland, and every two or three islands become a harbour.
Upon the ends of the principal of these harbours large heaps of stones have been piled up, to serve as signals, or marks, how to enter; and it is in these that the large vessels from Cairo to Jidda, equal in size to our 74 gun ships, (but from the cisterns of mason-work built within for holding water, I suppose double their weight) after navigating their portion of the channel in the day, come safely and quietly to, at four o’clock in the afternoon, and in these little harbours pass the night, to sail into the channel again, next morning at sun-rise.
Therefore, though in the track of my voyage to Tor, I am seen running from the west side of Jibbel Zeit a W. N. W. course (for I had no place for a compass) into the harbour of Tor, I do not mean to do so bad a service to humanity as to persuade large ships to follow my track. There are two ways of instructing men usefully, in things absolutely unknown to them. The first is, to teach them what they can do safely. The next is, to teach them what they cannot do at all, or, warranted by a pressing occasion, attempt with more or less danger, which should be explained and placed before their eyes, for without this last no man knows the extent of his own powers. With this view, I will venture, without fear of contradiction, to say, that my course from Cosseir, or even from Jibbel Siberget, to Tor, is impossible to a great ship. My voyage, painful, full of care, and dangerous as it was, is not to be accounted a surety for the lives of thousands. It may be regarded as a foundation for surveys hereafter to be made by persons more capable, and better protected; and in this case will, I hope, be found a valuable fragment, because, whatever have been my conscientious fears of running servants, who work for pay, into danger of losing their lives by peril of the sea, yet I can safely say, that never did the face of man, or fear of danger to myself, deter me from verifying with my eyes, what my own hands have put upon paper.
In the days of the Ptolemies, and, as I shall shew, long before, the west coast of the Red Sea, where the deepest water, and most dangerous rocks are, was the track which the Indian and African ships chose, when loaded with the richest merchandise that ever vessels since carried. The Ptolemies built a number of large cities on this coast; nor do we hear that ships were obliged to abandon that track, from the disasters that befel them in the navigation. On the contrary, they avoided the coast of Arabia; and one reason, among others, is plain why they should;—they were loaded with the most valuable commodities, gold, ivory, gums, and precious stones; room for stowage on board therefore was very valuable.
Part of this trade, when at its greatest perfection, was carried on in vessels with oars. We know from the prophet Ezekiel[165], 700 years before Christ, or 300 after Solomon had finished his trade with Africa and India, that they did not always make use of sails in the track of the monsoons; and consequently a great number of men must have been necessary for so tedious a voyage. A number of men being necessary, a quantity of water was equally so; and this must have taken up a great deal of stowage. Now, no where on the coast of Abyssinia could they want water two days; and scarce any where, on the coast of Arabia, could they be sure of it once in fifteen, and from this the western coast was called Ber el Ajam[166], corruptly Azamia, the country of water, in opposition to the eastern shore, called Ber el Arab, where there was none.