3 oo TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Our Rais, above all, was feized with a panic ; his country- 

 was juft adjoining to Mafcatte upon the Indian Ocean, and 

 they were generally at war. He faid he knew well who 

 thev were, that there was no country kept in better order 

 than Mafcatte ; but that thefe were a fet of pirates, belong- 

 ing to the Bahareen ; that their veffels were ftout, full of 

 men, who carried incenfe to Jidda, and up as far as Mada- 

 gafcar ; that they feared no man, and loved no man, only 

 were true to their employers for the time. He imagined (I 

 fuppofe it was but imagination,) that he had feen a veffel in 

 the morning, (a lug-fail veffel, as the pirate was defcribed to 

 be,) and it was with difficulty we could prevail on the Rais not 

 to fail back to Jidda. I took my leave of the Emir to return 

 to my tent, to hold a confutation what was to be done. 



Konfodah is in the lat. 19 7' North. It is one of the 

 moft unwholefome parts on the Red Sea,provifion is very dear 

 and bad, and the water, (contrary to what the Emir had 

 told me) execrable. Goats neiTi is the only meat, and that 

 very dear and lean. The anchorage, from the caftle, bears 

 north-weft a quarter of a mile diftant, from ten to feven 

 fathoms, in fand and mud. 



On the 14th, our Rais, more afraid of dying by a fever 

 than by the hands of the pirates, confented willingly to put 

 to fea. The Emir's good dinners had not extended to the 

 boat's crew, and they had been upon fhort commons. The 

 Rais's fever had returned fince he left Jidda, and I gave him 

 fome dofes of bark, after which he foon recovered. But he- 

 was always complaining of hunger, which the black flefli 

 of an old goat, the Emir had given us, did not fatisfy. 



We 



