330 
MAGOWAR. 
position, but is called St. John's island. Mr. Bruce says, that 
Macowar is the place, " to which the coasting vessels from Mas- 
sowah and Suakin, which are bound to Jidda during the strength 
of the summer monsoon, stand close in shore down the coast of 
Abyssinia." He adds, " that arrived at this island, they set their 
prow towards the opposite shore, and cross the channel in one night 
to the coast of Arabia, being nearly before the wind;" and he finishes 
the paragraph by the modest assertion, that " the track of this ex- 
traordinary navigation is marked on the map, and is so well verified, 
that no ship-master need doubt it." Not one word of this narrative 
can be made to agree with the islands actually in the vicinity of 
Ras-el-Anf ; nor could any thing be more absurd than to suppose, 
that the dows would beat against a contrary monsoon as high as 
^4° 2,' N. ; when they would have a fair wind for the port they were 
bound to, Jidda, when in lat. 50° 38' N. That the entire description 
of the island, and the plan of starting from it for Jidda, is perfectly 
true, when referred to the real Macowar, I can, from my own inform- 
ation, and the evidence of the pilots, most positively assert ; and the 
declarations of the natives are strongly corroborated by their total 
ignorance of the western coast above Macowar. No pilot could be 
found at Massowah, or Suakin, who would undertake to carry the 
Panther into Foul Bay, where I was particularly anxious to go, and 
look for Berenice, though they all knew the way as far as lat. 20° 38'. 
I think it clear from the above observations, that Mr. Bruce has 
represented himself, in the first place, as visiting an island called 
Jibbel Zumrud, in lat. 25° 3' N. though in fact, that island lies in 
23° 48', and afterwards as reaching another island, Macowar, in 
24'' ^' N. which, in fact, lies in ^0° 38'. 
