THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 303 



more. We pafTed fevcral ports or harbours ; firft Mcrfa Amec, 

 where there is good anchorage in eleven fathom of water, 

 a mile and a half from the fhore ; at eight o'clock, No- 

 houde, with an ifland of the fame name; at ten, a harbour 

 and village called Dahaban. As the fky was quite overcaft, 

 I could get no obfervation, though I watched very attentive- 

 ly. Dahaban is a large village, where there is both water 

 and proviiion, but I did not fee its harbour. It bore E. N. E. 

 of us about three miles diitant. At three quarters paft 

 eleven we came up to a high rock, called Koti/mbal, and I 

 lay to, for obfervation. It is of a dark-brown, approaching 

 to red ; is about two miles from the Arabian more, and 

 produces nothing. I found its latitude to be 17° 57' north. 

 A fmall rock ftands up at one end of the bafe of the moun- 

 tain. 



We came to an anchor in the port of Sibt, where I went 

 afhore under pretence of feeking provifions, but in reality 

 to fee the country, and obferve what fort of people the in- 

 habitants were. The mountains from Kotumbal ran in 

 an even chain along the coaft, at no great diftance, but of 

 iiich a height, that as yet we had feen nothing like them. 

 Sibt is too mean, and too fmall to be called a village, even 

 in Arabia. It confilts of about fifteen or twenty mifcrablc 

 huts, built of ftraw; around it there is a plantation of doom- 

 trees, of the leaves of which they make mats and fails, 

 which is the whole manufacture of the place. 



Our Rais made many purchafes here. The Cotrufoi, the 

 inhabitants of this village, feem to be as brutifh a people 

 as any in the world. They are perfectly lean, but mufcu- 

 lar, and apparently ftrong; they wear all their own hair, 



\ which 



