102 
ADEN. 
tions are still more contradicted by facts. Supposing that a vessel 
sailed down the Red Sea earlyin August, she might have had three 
months of favourable winds and weather till November, which 
surely is ample time for her voyage to Gardafui. In November, as 
Mr. Bruce himself allows, the north-east monsoon becomes settled 
in the Indian seas, and the vessel might then have continued her 
voyage, and must have had full six months of continual fair wind 
and strong currents in her favour, which could not have failed to 
carry her down to Sofala ; for as to the anomalous south-west 
monsoon in the beginning of November, which was to cut off her 
voyage to Sofala, and oblige her to put into the small harbour of 
Mocha, near to Melinda, but nearer still to Tarshish, there to 
continue six months," * it is all absolutely without foundation ; 
no such anomalous wind existing, as is sufficiently proved by 
Admiral Blanket's fleet, which was in this part of the sea from 
December to April, (vide the accurate observations of Captain 
Bissell) and no such places as Mocha or Tarshish being known ori 
the coast. The authority I have already quoted is sufficient to 
bear me out in these facts, but I may, in confirmation, mention, 
that the Arab boats run this voyage every year at least so far as 
the Querimbo Islands, and the Portuguese vessels, during the 
same season, are constantly in the habit of sailing from the 
Querimbo Islands down to Sofala. 
* Tarshish is said by Mr. Bruce to have been mentioned in the Abyssinian chronicles 
as one of the districts opposed to Amda Sion : but as the whole of this king's expeditions 
certainly n-ever extended above two hundred miles from Zeyla, very little importance can 
be attached to this remark, even if it he so mentioned, because it must have been in that 
case at least six hundred miles out of the scene of action. With respect to the rivers 
Yass and Aco, one actually lies to the north of Zeyia, and the other at no great distance, 
while in Mr, B.'s map they are carried ten degrees south of it 1 
