soo 
SUAKIN 
but little way; our crew not being sufficient, and our boats scarcely 
strong enough to sustain the weight of a large cable. It blew fresher 
than yesterday, from the N. and N. E. 
February 24. — In the night the wind gradually increased to a 
gale, and we were nearly driven on the southern shoal, by our an- 
chor's falling into the deepest part of the channel : there, however, 
it held fast. When more moderate, we warped farther, but dragged 
back, the wind being fresh, and right into the mouth of the har- 
bour. We kept quiet the whole of the afternoon. 
February 25.^ — It blew fresh and adverse in the night, and till 
the sun rose, when the swell and wind went down. We again be- 
gan to warp out, but our anchor fell into deep water, and we were 
within ten feet of the southern shoal. We found, to our cost, that in 
northerly winds this harbour is a prison. It is too narrow to work 
in, and too deep to warp out of, with facility. When the winds are 
from the south, there is a regular land breeze every morning, which 
obviates all difficulties. The old pilot says, the southerly winds blow 
here eight months out of the twelve, but never lor any length of time 
without intermission. From all I can learn from different people, 
who have been in the Red Sea, I believe that there is no season in 
which the winds blow from one point without changing for a few 
days ; and, in the middle part of the gulf, they may almost be called 
variable, at least as much so as in the British Channel, where, for 
nine months in the year, the wind blows from the westward. We 
have for five weeks had N. E. winds, yet the monsoons of this sea 
are said to be N. W. and S. E. After a hard day's labour we regained 
the spot from which we were driven yesterday. It is fortunate for 
us that we procured at Mocha some native hawsers made of a grass. 
