'354 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



and nearly procured my affaffmation. The revenue of this 

 governor confifts in a goat brought to him monthly by each 

 of the twelve villages. Every veflel, that puts in there for 

 Mafuah, pays him alio a pound of coffee, and every one 

 from Arabia, a dollar or pataka. No fort of fmall money is 

 current at Dahalac, excepting Venetian glafs-beads, old and 

 new, of all fizes and colours, broken and whole. 



Although this is the miferable Hate of Dahalac at pre- 

 fent, matters were widely different in former times. The 

 pearl fifhery flourifhed greatly here, under the Ptolemies ; 

 and even long after, in the time of the Caliphs, it produced a 

 great revenue, and, till the fovereigns of Cairo, of the prefent 

 miferable race of flaves, began to withdraw themfelves 

 from their dependency on the port (for even after the reign 

 of Selim, and the conquefts of Arabia, under Sinan Bafha, 

 the Turkifh gallics were ftill kept up at Suez, whilft Ma- 

 fuah and Suakem had Bafhas) Dahalac was the principal 

 ifland that furnifhed the pearl fifhers, or divers. It was, 

 indeed, the chief port for the fifhery on the fouthern part 

 of the Red Sea, as Suakem was on the north ; and the 

 Bafha of Mafuah paffed part of every fummer here, to avoid 

 the heat at his place of refidence on the Continent. 



The fifhery extended from Dahalac and its iflands nearly 

 to lat. 2o°. The inhabited iilands furnifhed each a bark, 

 and lb many divers, and they were paid in wheat, flour, &c. 

 fuch a portion to each bark, for their ufe, and lb much to 

 leave with their family, for their fubliftence ; fo that a 

 few months employment furnifhed them with every thing 

 necellary for the reft of the year. The fifhery was rented, 

 in lattertimes, to the Baft a of Suakem, but there was a place 



between 



