In this sea is the island of Socotra, whence come the best aloes. This island is near the land of the Zinges, or Negroes, and is likewise near Arabia; and most of its inhabitants are Christians, which is thus accounted for: When Alexander had subdued the empire of Persia, his preceptor, Aristotle, desired him to search out the island of Socotra, which afforded aloes, and without which the famous medicine Hiera[15] could not be compounded; desiring him likewise to remove the natives and to plant there a colony of Greeks, who might supply Syria, Greece, and Egypt with aloes. This was done accordingly; and when God sent Jesus Christ into the world, the Greeks of this isle embraced the Christian faith, like the rest of their nation, and have persevered in it to this day, like all the other inhabitants of the islands[16].
[15] It is somewhat singular to find this ancient Arabian author mentioning the first word of the famous Hiera Picra, or Holy Powder; a compound stomachic purge of aloes and spices, probably combined by the ancients with many other ingredients, as it is by the moderns with rhubarb, though now only given in tincture or solution with wine or spirits. The story of Alexander rests only on its own Arabian basis.--E.
[16] Meaning, doubtless, the isles of the Mediterranean.--E.
In the first book, no mention is made of the sea which stretches away to the right, as ships depart from Oman and the coast of Arabia, to launch out into the great sea: and the author describes only the sea on the left hand, in which are comprehended the seas of India and China. In this sea, to the right as you leave Oman, is the country of Sihar or Shihr, where frankincense grows, and other countries possessed by the nations of Ad, Hamyar, Jorham, and Thabatcha, who have the Sonna, in Arabic of very ancient date, but differing in many things from what is in the hands of the Arabs, and containing many traditions unknown to us. They have no villages, and live a very hard and miserably wandering life; but their country extends almost as far as Aden and Judda on the coast of Yaman, or Arabia the happy. From Judda, it stretches up into the continent, as far as the coast of Syria, and ends at Kolzum. The sea at this place is divided by a slip of land, which God hath fixed as a line of separation between the two seas[17]. From Kolzum the sea stretches along the coast of the Barbarians, to the west coast, which is opposite to Yaman, and then along the coast of Ethiopia, from whence we have the leopard skins of Barbary[18], which are the best of all, and the most skilfully dressed; and lastly, along the coast of Zeilah, whence come excellent amber and tortoiseshell.
[17] Referring, obviously, to the Isthmus of Suez.--E.
[18] This does not refer to the coast of Barbary in the Mediterranean, but must mean the coast of the barbarian Arabs or Bedouins.--E.
When the Siraff ships arrive in the Red Sea, they go no farther than Judda, whence their cargo is transported to Cairo, or Kahira by ships of Kolsum, the pilots of which are acquainted with the navigation of the upper end of this sea, which is full of rocks up to the water's edge; because, also, along the coast there are no kings[19], and scarcely any inhabitants; and because, every night ships are obliged to put into some place for safety, for fear of striking on the rocks, or must ride all night at anchor, sailing only in the day-time. This sea is likewise subject to very thick fogs, and to violent gales of wind, and is therefore of very dangerous navigation, and devoid of any safe or pleasant anchorage. It is not, like the seas of India and China, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris; whose mountains are stored with gold, precious stones, and ivory; whose coasts produce ebony, redwood, aloes, camphor, nutmegs, cloves, sandal, and all other spices and aromatics; where parrots and peacocks are birds of the forest, and in which musk and civet are collected in abundance: so productive, in short, are these shores of articles of infinite variety, and inestimable value, that it were vain to endeavour to make any enumeration.
[19] This singular expression probably signifies that the inhabitants are without law or regular government.--E.
Ambergris is thrown upon this coast by the flux of the sea, but its origin is unknown. It is found on the coast of the Indies, but the best, which is of a bluish white, and in round lumps, is got upon the Barbarian coast: or on the confines of the land of the Negroes, towards Sihar and that neighbourhood. The inhabitants of that country have camels trained for the purpose, on which they ride along the shore in moonshine nights, and when the camels perceive a piece of amber, he bends his knees, on which the rider dismounts, and secures his prize. There is another kind which swims on the surface of the sea in great lumps, sometimes as big as the body of an ox, or somewhat less. When a certain fish, named Tal, of the whale tribe, sees these floating lumps, he swallows them, and is thereby killed; and when the people, who are accustomed to this fishery, see a whale floating on the surface, they know that this whale has swallowed ambergris, and going out in their boats, they dart their harpoons into its body, and tow it on shore, and split the animal down the back, to get out the ambergris. What is found about the belly of the whale is commonly spoiled by the wet, and has an unpleasant scent; but the ambergris which is not contaminated by the ordure in the belly of the whale, is perfectly good[20].
[20] This curious account of the origin of ambergris, was revived again about twenty-five years ago, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, as a new discovery. The only difference in the modern account of the matter is, that the ambergris originates within the alimentary canal of the whale, in consequence, probably, of some disease; and that the lumps which are found afloat, or cast on shore, had been extruded by these animals.--E.