362 MOCHA." 
of the accidental landing of the crew of a ship, bound from India 
to Jidda, of the visit paid by the Captain to Sheik Shadelei, and 
the consequent sale of his cargo to the Arabs, who were followers 
of the. Sheik, was narrated to me by the Hadje Abdallah, and 
confirmed by the Bas Kateb, to whom I applied for information. 
Mocha, according to these learned natives, was not in existence 
four litindred years ago; from which period we know nothing of 
it, till the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in India 
opened the Red Sea to the navies of Europe. The first entered 
it in 1513, under Don Alphonso Albuquerque, with an intention 
of uniting themselves with the Abyssinians against their common 
enemy the Mussulmauns, but returned without having reaped 
any advantage. In 1538, Soolimaun Basha, commanding the fleet 
of the Soldan of Egypt, stopped at Mocha, on his return from his 
disgraceful expedition against Diu. It is only mentioned in his 
voyage as a castle, and was therefore probably a place of little im- 
portance, and had a Turk for its governor. In 1609, when the Red 
Sea was first visited by the English under Alexander Sharpey, 
Mocha had greatly risen in importance, and had become the great 
mart for the trade between India and Egypt. The Turkish gover- 
nor was, at that time, a man of prudence and liberality, so that the 
English traded without any injury; but his successor, in the fol- 
lowing year, had very different ideas, as Sir Henry Middleton ex- 
perienced to his cost, who was betrayed, and kept as a prisoner for 
some time. These circumstances were too inimical to trade to 
admit of its continuance, and there was only a Dutch factory at 
Mocha, when Monsieur De la Marveille visited it in 1708, and 
established a factory for his countrymen. Between that period and 
