GOVERNMENT OF ARABIA. 153 



mentioned it as a castle where he stopped on return- 

 ing from his disgraceful expedition against Dm. 



In the beginning of the seventeenth century, when 

 the Red Sea was first visited by the English under 

 Captain Alexander Sharpey of the Ascension (1609),, 

 Mocha had become the grand mart for the trade be- 

 tween India and Egypt. The Turkish governor was 

 courteous and liberal, and allowed the foreigners to 

 traffic without injury ; but the succeeding pasha was 

 a man of a very different character, as Admiral Sir 

 Henry Middleton, who was sent by the East India 

 Company on a trading voyage the following year, 

 experienced to his cost. The treacherous Turks 

 not only assaulted the strangers in the town, but 

 made an attack on their ships in the harbour. The 

 gallant commander and part of the crew (f were ma- 

 nacled like so many slaves ;" Sir Henry was threat- 

 ened with the loss of his head for daring to set his 

 polluted foot on the soil where the city of their holy 

 Prophet stood, and consigned to a dungeon, where 

 " he had a hard floor for his bed, a great stone for 

 his pillow, and good store of rats and mice to keep 

 him company." After lying in captivity for some 

 time, he was conveyed a prisoner to Sanaa, which 

 he describes as something bigger than Bristol ; but 

 by the interposition of certain friends he obtained 

 his release, and was remanded to Mocha, with a 

 stern injunction that neither he nor any of his na- 

 tion should again revisit these ports. 



Captain Saris with a small expedition arrived in 

 the course of next year, when he found the Turks 

 more liberal, and met with greater civility ; but the 

 spirit of religious antipathy was too fierce to ad- 

 mit the continuance of trade. Monsieur de la Mer- 



