ti2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



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and give us an opportunity to make what obfervations we 

 pleafed in quiet. 



We caught here a prodigious quantity of the fineft fifh 

 that I had ever before feen, but the filly Rais greatly trou- 

 bled our enjoyment, by telling us, that many of the fifh in 

 that part were poifonous. Several of our people took the 

 alarm, and abftained; the rule I made ufe of in chooiing. 

 mine, was to take all thofe that were likefl the fifh of our 

 own northern feas, nor had I ever any reafon to complain. 



At noon, I made an obfervation of the fun, -jufl under 

 the Cape of the Arabian fhore, with a Hadley's quadrant, 

 and found it to be in lat. ii° 38' 30", but by many pafTages 

 of the flars, obferved by my large aftronomical quadrant 

 in the ifland of Perim, all deductions made, I found the 

 true latitude of the Cape mould be rather 12° 39' 2.0" north. 



Perim is a low ifland, its harbour good, fronting the 

 Abyflinian fhore. It is a barren, bare rock, producing, on 

 fome parts of it, plants of abfynthium, or rue, in others kelp, 

 that did not feem to thrive; it was at this time perfectly 

 fcorched by the heat of the fun, and had only a very faint 

 appearance of having ever vegetated. The ifland itfelf 

 is about five miles in length, perhaps more, and about 

 two miles in breadth. It becomes narrower at both 

 ends. Ever fince we anchored at the Cape, it had begun to 

 blow flrongly from the weft, which gave our Rais great 

 apprchenfion, as, he faid, the wind fometimes continued in 

 that point for fifteen days together. This alarmed me not 

 a little, leaft, by miffing Mahomet Gibberti, we fhould lofe 

 ^ur voyage. We had rice and butter, honey and flour. 



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