I Returned Him Thanks, Seemingly Much Satisfied With His Protestations, Though I Gave No Credit To Them, But Was Forced To Endure What I Could Not Remedy, Till God Should Please To Provide Better.

The 7th, the aga made a great feast at his garden-house for the Dabul merchants, to which I and Mr Femell were invited.

The 8th we were all sent for by the aga, when thirty were selected to remain along with me a-land, and the rest, to the number of thirty-six, were sent on board the Darling. The 9th I had escaped, if I had not been more careful for those who had then been left behind than for myself. This day the Darling departed to the other ships in an excellent road called Assab, on the coast of Habash or Abyssinia, which they had found out during my absence, where they, were safe in all winds that blow in these seas, and where they had plenty of wood and water merely for the trouble of fetching. The water was indeed a little brackish, but it satisfied them who had been long in want on that necessary. The people of this country are as black as the Guinea negroes; those on the sea-coast being Mahometans, but those of the inland country are Christians, and subjects to Prester John. They go almost naked, having only a cloth round their waists and down to their knees. At the first coming of our people they were much afraid; but after becoming acquainted, and a mutual peace being sworn between them, they supplied our ships with beeves, sheep, and goats, for money, at a reasonable rate; and, as they afterwards desired calico rather than money, I furnished them with it from Mokha, after which our ships got refreshments much cheaper in truck than formerly for money, dealing faithfully and kindly with our people, though the Turks sought to make them inimical by means of barks, which pass to and fro.

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