Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/608

 604 TUCKEY. the ambassadors concealed themselves several days in the woods, where they were discovered by Mr. Tuckey, for which he received a French general's sword, as the only share for this capture, he being only a passenger in the Brave. On his arrival in the Red Sea, Admiral Blankett had quitted it for India, and he rejoined his old ship the Fox, which was left to guard the straits of Babelmandel. On the return of the admiral in 1800, he intended to visit Sir Sidney Smith at Cairo, on the supposition of the French having evacuated Egypt, under the sanction of a convention with that officer; and in that idea sent Mr. Tuckey in the Fox to Suez, to proceed over-land from thence with letters for Sir Sidney: but on his arrival at Suez he found it in possession of the French, in conse quence of Lord Keith's refusal to permit their embarkation. He therefore returned to Bombay. The excessive heat of the Red Sea seems to have laid the foundation of a complaint which never left him. He writes from Bombay, “It may surprise you to hear me complain of heat, after six years broiling between the tropics; but the hottest day I ever felt, either in the East or the West Indies, was winter to the coolest one we had in the Red Sea. The whole coast of ‘Araby the blest,’ from Babelmandel to Suez, for forty miles inland, is an arid sand, producing not a single blade of grass, nor affording one drop of fresh water; that which we drank for nine months, on being analysed, was found to contain a very large portion of sea salt. In the Red sea the ther mometer at midnight was never lower than 94", at sunrise 104", and at noon 112°. In India the medium is 82°, the highest 94°.” - Towards the close of the same year he again proceeded with the expedition to the Red Sea, (contrary to the advice of the faculty,) and arrived at Juddah in January 1801; but in the course of a month his liver complaint returned, and his health suffered so many shocks, that he was reduced to a skeleton, and obliged to make h i s way back t o India, where the physician o f the fleet advised