Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/452

340 have enlarged the crater on this side. The island is four miles from south to north, has a peek in form of a pyramid in the middle of it, and is about a quarter of a mile high. It descends, equally, on both sides, to the sea; has four openings at the top, which vent smoke, and sometimes,in strong southerly winds it is said to throw out fire. There was no such appearance when we passed it. The isand is perfectly desert, being covered with sulphur and pumice stones.

journals that I have seen are full of indraughts, whirlpools, and unfathomable depths, all around this island; I must however take the liberty of saying to these gentlemen, who are otherwise so very fond of soundings as to distribute them all over the channel, that they have been unfortunate in placing their unfathomable depths here, and even soundings. It is probable these are occasioned by the convulsions in the earth made by this volcano; but the only indraught we saw was a strong current setting northward, and there are soundings as far as three leagues east of it, in 33 fathom water, with a sandy bottom. Between this and the island Rasab you have soundings from 20 to 35 fathom, with sand and rocks; and on the north-east fide you have good anchoring, from a league's distance, till within a cable's length of the shore, and there is anchorage five leagues S. W. by. W. in twenty-five fathoms, and I believe also, in the line from Loheia to Dahalac, the effects of the convulsions of this vulcano. Such, at leaft, is the information I procured at Masuah from the pilots used to this navigation in search of sulphur; such was the information also of my Rais, who went twice loaded with that commodity to his own country at Masfcatte; no other people go there. Both Abyssinians and Arabians believe that this is