4 MANGALORE. 
adjacent islands, where, in former times, the Egyptian and Roman 
merchants were induced to fix their residence for the purpose of 
carrying on the trade with Abyssinia, and the interior of Africa. At 
Dhalac, Mr. Bruce has asserted, that three hundred and sixty tanks, 
which had been erected by the munificence of the Ptolemies, were 
still in a state of preservation to afford, with care, a supply of water, 
more than sufficient for any fleet which the British could ever have 
occasion to send into that sea. 
The commercial advantages which might attend the opening of 
a communication with Abyssinia, appeared also worthy of attention ; 
and a more favourable time for making the attempt could never 
be expected, than immediately after the British naval power had 
been so fully displayed on the shores of Arabia and Egypt, and 
when the trade with the interior of Africa had been interrupted 
in its usual channel through the latter country, first by the conquest 
of the French, and afterwards by the civil war between the Porte 
and the Beys, which had caused a perfect separation between the 
upper and lower provinces. 
I confess also that I felt it as a national reflection, that a coast 
which had afforded a profitable and extensive trade in gold, ivory, 
and pearls, to the sovereigns of Egypt, should be a perfect blank 
in our charts ; and that while new islands, and even continents, 
were discovered by the abilities of our seamen, we should have 
become so ignorant of the eastern shore of Africa, as to be unable 
to ascertain many of the harbours and islands, described by an 
ancient navigator in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea- 
During my stay at Calcutta I had the honour of frequently con- 
versing with the Marquis Wellesley on the subject of the Red Sea, 
DSI 
