Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/377

Rh accuracy, as to aver they had kept their course within five leagues, between India and Babelmandeb. Yet they had made no estimation of the currents without the * Babs, nor the different very strong ones soon after passing Socotra; their half-minute glasses upon a medium ran 57"; they had made no observation on the tides or currents in the Red Sea, either in the channel or in the inward passage; yet there is delineated in this map a course of Captain Newland's, which he kept in the middle of the channel, full of sharp angles and short stretches; you would think every yard was measured and sounded.

the spurious catalogue of soundings found in the old chart above mentioned, there is added a double proportion of new, from what authority is not known; so that from Mocha, to lat. 17° you have as it were soundings every mile, or even less. No one can cast his eyes on the upper part of the map, but must think the Red Sea one of the most frequented places in the world. Yet I will aver, without fear of being contradicted, that it is a characteristic of the Red Sea, scarce to have soundings in any part of the channel, and often on both sides, whilst ashore soundings are hardly found a boat-length from the main. To this I will add, that there is scarce one island upon which I ever was, where the boltsprit was not over the land, while there were no soundings by a line heaved over the stern. I must then protest against making these old most erroneous maps a foundation for new ones, as they can be of no use, but must be of

Rh


 * .This is a common sailor's phrase for the Straits of Babelmandeb.