436 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



calls them, metal-men, to Orphi, or Ophir, an illand in the Red 

 Sea. Now, by the Red Sea, he underftands the Indian 

 Ocean * ; and by Orphi, he probably meant the ifland of 

 Madagafcar ; or Orphi (or Ophir) might have been the 

 name of the Continent,inftead of Sofala, that is, Sofala where 

 the mines are might have been the main-land of Orphi. 



The kings of the ifles are often mentioned in this voy- 

 age ; Socotra, Madagafcar, the Gommorrasj and many other 

 fmall iflands thereabout, are probably thofe the fcripture 

 calls the IJles. All, then, at laft reduces itfelf to the finding 

 a place, either Sofala, or any other place adjoining to it, 

 which avowedly can furnifh gold, filver, and ivory in quan- 

 tity, has large tokens of ancient excavations, and is at 

 the fame time under fuch reftriclions from monfoons, that 

 three years are abfolutely neceflary to perform the voyage, 

 that it needs no more, and cannot be done in lefs, and this 

 is Ophir. 



Let us now try thefe mines of Dos Santos by the laws of 

 the monfoons, which we have already laid down in defcri- 

 bing the voyage to India. The fleets or fhip, for Sofala, part- 

 ing in June from Ezion-gaber, would run down before the 

 northern monfoon to Mocha. Here, not the monfoon, but 

 the direction of the Gulf changes, and the violence of the 

 ibuth-wefters, which then reign in the Indian Ocean, make 

 themfelves at times felt even in Mocha Roads. The venel 

 therefore comes to an anchor in the harbour of Mocha, 

 and here fhe waits for moderate weather and a fair wind, 



which 



* Dionyfii Periegefis, ver. 38. and Comment. Euftathii in eundem. Strabo, lib. 16. p. 765.. 

 Agathemeri Geographia, lib. z, cap. 11. 



