The Town Is Very Small And Perhaps In The
Most Miserable And Barren Spot In The World.
The houses are more like
hovels for cattle, some built of stone and clay, and others of sod,
having
No roofs except a few matts which defend the inhabitants from the
sun, and from rain if any happen now and then to fall as it were by
chance, as in this place it so seldom rains as to be looked upon as a
wonder. In the whole neighbouring country on the coast, fields,
mountains, or hills, there groweth no kind of herb, grass, tree, or
bush; and nothing is to be seen but black scorched mountains and a
number of bare hillocks, which environ the whole place from sea to sea,
like an amphitheatre of barrenness and sterility, most melancholy to
behold. Any flat ground there is, is a mere dry barren sand mixed with
gravel. The port even is the worst I have seen on all this coast, and
has no fish, though all the other ports and channels through which we
came have abundance and variety. It has no kind of cattle; and the
people are supplied from three wells near the town, the water of which
differs very little from that of the sea.
[Footnote 307: In Purchas, Al Kossir is named Alcocer. Don John thinks
this place to be the Philoteras of Ptolomy; but Dr Pocock places it
2 deg.40' more to the north, making Kossir Berenice, which is highly
probable, as it is still the port of Kept, anciently Coptos, or of
Kus near it, both on the Nile, as well as the nearest port to the Nile
on all that coast, which Berenice was. Dr Pocock supposes old Kossir
to have been Myos Hormos: but we rather believe it to have been
Berenice. - Ast.]
The most experienced of the Moors had never heard of the name of
Egypt[308], but call the whole land from Al Kossir to Alexandria by
the name of Riffa[309], which abounds in all kinds of victuals and
provisions more than any other part of the world, together with great
abundance of cattle, horses, and camels, there not being a single foot
of waste land in the whole country. According to the information I
received; their language and customs are entirely Arabic. The land, as I
was told, is entirely plain, on which it never rains except for a
wonder; but God hath provided a remedy by ordaining that the Nile should
twice a year[310] overflow its natural bounds to water the fields. They
said likewise that the Nile from opposite to Al Kossir, and far above
that towards the bounds of Abyssinia, was navigable all the way to
Alexandria; but having many islands and rocks, either it was necessary
to have good pilots or to sail only by day. They told me likewise that
the natives inhabited this barren spot of Al Kossir, as being the
nearest harbour on the coast of the Red Sea to the Nile, whence
provisions were transported; and that the inhabitants were satisfied
with slight matts instead of roofs to their houses because not troubled
with rain, and the matts were a sufficient protection from the sun:
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