Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/333

Rh take in your water at Mocha; or, if any reason should hinder you from touching that shore, a few hours will carry you to Azab, or Saba, on the Abyssinian coast, whose latitude I found to be 13° 5' north. It is not a port, but a very tolerable road, where you have very safe riding, under the shelter of a low desert island called Crab Island, with a few rocks at the end of it. But it must be remembered, the people are Galla, the most treacherous and villanous wretches upon the earth. They are Shepherds, who sometimes are on the coast in great numbers, or in the back of the hills that run close along the shore, or in miserable villages composed of huts, that run nearly in an east and west direction from Azab to Raheeta, the largest of all their villages. You will there, at Azab, get plenty of water, sheep, and goats, as also some myrrh and incense, if you are in the proper season, or will stay for it.

repeat it, that no confidence is to be had in the people. Those of Mocha, who even are absolutely necessary to them in their commercial transactions, cannot trust them without surety or hostages. And it was but a few years before I was there, the surgeon and mate of the Elgin East-India man, with several other sailors, were cut off, going on shore with a letter of safe conduct from their Shekh to purchase myrrh. Those that were in the boat escaped, but most of them were wounded. A ship, on its guard, does not fear banditti like these, and you will get plenty of water and provision, though I am only speaking of it as a station of necessity.

you are not afraid of being known, there is a low black island on the Arabian coast called Camaran, it is in . I.