Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/109

 favour from the unprincipled character of those persons with whom they are generally obliged to transact business. Duroz, the principal Banian at Aden, appeared to be one of the most respectable of the class I have ever met with.

On the 11th of October we left Aden with a fair wind and a favourable current, the weather being pleasant and the water smooth, and we continued all day coasting along the shore, the mountains of which are very remarkable in their forms. At sunset, by an amplitude, we found the variation to be 7° 10′ west.

13th.—We passed Cape St. Anthony in the night, and, at day-break, had it still in sight, bearing NE. b, E. distant eight leagues, Babelmandeb Straits, NW. b. W. nine leagues, and the coast of Africa W. S. W. seven leagues. In this situation it is particularly important for strangers unacquainted with the coast to keep near the Arabian shore until the Island of Perim appear in sight, as many ships, by not attending to this caution, have got entangled in the deep Bay of Tajoura, a remarkable instance of which is to be met with in the Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse, page 59, 64, where, in December 1708, owing to a mistake of this nature, the vessel Le Curieux was very nearly lost on one of the shoals in this dangerous Bay. At eleven in the morning we passed through the Straits of Babelmandeb, with a strong current setting in N W. b. N. and at half past three came to an anchor in Mocha roads. Soon afterwards I received a letter from Captain Rudland inviting me on shore, and in the evening I took up my residence at the British factory.

Captain Rudland, shortly afterwards, was obliging enough to disclose his orders from the Bombay Government, for opening a commercial intercourse with Abyssinia, the plans which he had adopted for this purpose, and the correspondence and transactions which had consequently taken place. Immediately on his arrival in the Red Sea he had, in May 1809, dispatched letters to Ras Welled Selassé, in which he informed him of his arrival at Mocha, as agent to the East India Company, and expressed the desire of the Indian Government to keep up a regular communication with Abyssinia. He also had