JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY 



No. 56.— August, 1836. 



I. — Extracts from the Mohit (the Ocean), a Turkish work on Naviga- 

 tion in the Indian Seas. Translated and communicated by Joseph Von 

 Hammer, Baron Purgstall, Aulic Counsellor, and Prof. Orient. 

 Lang, at Vienna, Hon. Memb. As. Socy. 8fC. fyc. 

 [Continued from vol. iii. p. 553.] 

 [We know not how to express sufficient gratitude to our illustrious cor- 

 respondent for his courtesy in allowing these pages to be the medium of 

 publication of this curious manuscript of SiDi Ali Capudan. The manner 

 in which it was discovered by the Baron at Naples, after 30 years' fruitless 

 inquiry, was described in the preamble of the former extract. The value 

 set upon it by this eminent oriental scholar, induced him to offer to 

 translate the whole for the Oriental Translation Committee ; but through 

 some accident, (we can ascribe it to no other cause,) an offer so generous 

 has remained unacknowledged. " Without doubt," our correspondent 

 writes, " the book would deserve much more the care of the Committee than 

 many of minor interest published by it; but although to my volunteer I got 

 no more answer than to my offer of an edition and translation of Wassof, 

 agar hdjat bashed, as the Persians say, and with the assistance and remarks 

 of some Indian sea-faring gentlemen on the parts already translated, I 

 hope to send chapter after chapter to your Indian Journal, and thus we 

 shall be independent of the Committee." 



On the last occasion we derived some little assistance from the Nahho- 

 das of the Arabic vessels, in recognizing the places alluded to in the Sec- 

 tion on the monsoons. The same plan we have been prevented, in a great 

 measure, from following now, through the absence of these traders, who 

 only arrive here towards the end of the south-west monsoon (August- 

 September) and return with the setting in of the north-east wind in Fe- 

 bruary-March. YVe have, however, been able to trace most of the principal 

 names on the map, and have marked them in foot notes. The catalogue of 

 the names of islands in the Red Sea would be— and may, we hope, still be — 

 of great use to the officers of the Indian navy now engaged in its survey. 

 3 M 



