Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/444

332 or sea-eggs. I found, particularly, one of the pentaphylloid kind, of a very particular form. Spunges of the common sort are likewise found all along this coast. The bearings and distances of the principal islands from Foosht are:

Rh Rh Rh Rh Rh

is an island, low, long, and as broad as Foosht, inhabited by fishermen; without water in summer, which is then brought from Foosht, but in winter they preserve the rain-water in cisterns. These were built in ancient times, when this was a place of importance for the fishing of pearls, and they are in perfect repair to this day; neither the cement of the work, nor the stucco within, having at all suffered. Very violent showers fall here from the end of October to the beginning of March, but at certain intervals.

the islands on this east-side of the channel belong to the Sherriffe Djezan Booarish, but none are inhabited except Baccalan and Foosht. This last island is the most convenient watering-place for ships, bound up the channel from Jibbel Teir, from which it bears N. E. by E. ¾E. by the compass, nineteen leagues distant. It should be remembered, however, that the western watering-place is most eligible, because, in that case, navigators need not engage themselves among the islands to the eastward, where they will have uneven soundings two leagues from the land; but, though