m SUAKIN. 
on an elevation, look much better than they really are. It covers the 
whole of a small island, as it did in the days of De Castro, but the 
extensive trade, which, according to his account, had rendered it 
superior to every city he had seen, except Lisbon, has nearly va- 
nished, and instead of numerous ships, unloading their cargoes on 
every side of the island, into the houses of merchants, I could only 
perceive a few miserable dows anchored along side of a few wretched 
houses. , The port however still retains all its advantages, and 
vessels larger than the Panther might anchor close to the island, 
where there is seven fathom. D'Anville's chart is accurate as to 
the outline, but he has erred greatly with respect to the depth of 
water, which is from fifteen to nineteen fathoms the whole way 
to the town. He has likewise been mistaken in the relative size of 
the tw^o islands, which is nearly equal, and in its latitude, which, 
after the Portuguese, he has stated as 19'' %0' N. instead of 19^ 4' 8". 
I believe D'Anville is correct in his supposition, that this was 
^ the Soter Limen of Diodorus, the Theon Soter of Ptolemy, but I 
think it ill deserves the description he has given of it, as the 
safest asylum for navigators on this coast. The reefs and shoals 
that lie off it, in every direction, render an approach to it extremely 
dangerous, and the narrowness of the mouth makes it almost im- 
practicable to enter it with any, but a leading wind. It is difficult 
to account for a narrow passage between two lines of coral rock 
having continued for so long a period free for vessels, without having 
been filled up, either by a sea constantly breaking on its mouth, 
after having passed over sand banks, or by the clouds of sand 
which at one season of the year are borne towards it from the desert. 
Since the Turks have ceased to have a fleet in the Red Sea, and have 
