Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/469

Rh in which they once were so well skilled and had been educated. This great nursery of seamen therefore was lost, and the gallies, being no longer properly manned, were either given up to rot, or turned into merchant-ships for carrying the coffee between Yemen and Suez, these vessels were unarmed, and indeed incapable of armament, and unserviceable by their construction; besides, they were ill-manned, and so carelessly and ignorantly navigated, that there was not a year, that one or more did not founder, not from stress of weather, (for they were sailing in a pond) or from any thing, but ignorance, or inattention.

took again its ancient course towards Jidda. The Sherriffe of Mecca, and all the Arabs, were interested to get it back to Arabia, and with it the government of their own countries. That the pearl fishing might, moreover, no longer be an allurement for the Turkish power to maintain itself here, and oppress them, they discouraged the practice of diving, till it grew into desuetude; this brought insensibly all the people of the islands to the continent, where they were employed in coasting vessels, which continues their only occupation to this day. This policy succeeded; the princes of Arabia became again free from the Turkish power, now but a shadow, and Dahalac, Masuah, and Suakem, returned to their ancient masters, to which they are subject at this instant, governed indeed by Shekhs of their own country, and preserving only the name of Turkish government, each being under the command of a robber and assassin.

immense treasures in the bottom of the Red Sea, have thus been abandoned for near two hundred years, Rh