is fleet, and often will be directed from the happier West, to look upon and mingle with them in that striking scenery, and under those brilliant skies, which, at morn and eve, and at the noon of night, form the purest solace of the exile in India. "Now shape we our course for England. Beloved soile; as in site, wholly from all the world disjoined,' so in thy felicities."

6

Our vessel was one, rude and ancient in her construction as those which, in former and successive ages, carried the rich freights of India for the Ptolemies, the Roman prefects, and the Arabian caliphs of Egypt. She had, indeed, the wheel and the compass, and our nakhoda*, with a beard as black and long, and a solemnity as great as that of a magician, daily performed the miracle of taking an observation; but although these "peeping contrivances" of the Giaours, have been admitted, yet they build their craft with the same clumsy insecurity, and rig them in the same in

convenient manner as ever. Our vessel had a lofty broad stern, unmanageable in wearing; one enormous sail on a heavy yard of immense length, which was tardily hoisted by the efforts of some fifty men on a stout mast, placed a little before midships, and raking forwards; her head low, without any bowsprit; and, on the poop, a mizen uselessly small, with hardly canvass enough for a fishing-boat. Our lading was cotton, and the bales were piled up on her decks to a height at once awkward and unsafe. In short, she looked like part of a wharf, towering with bales, accidentally detached from its quay, and floating on the waters.

Providence, however, to whom all the Mohammedans trust, rather, indeed, with the indolence of the waggoner in perverse the fable, seems always to have regarded the merchant as the friend of mankind; and, thus, from year to year, with favourable and gentle gales, over a serene and pleasant sea, these Arab traders sail, as their forefathers have done before them, with a

peaceful feeling of security, which is seldom disappointed.

The interior arrangements and the scene on board merit a rapid sketch. Under the poop deck is one cabin aft, with stern windows, and one forward, with two ports of a side this last is, or would have been, open to the front, but for the high-piled bales of cotton, which with foot and knee, and outspread arm, we had constantly to scale, before we could gain the deck. The after cabin was the harem: the starboard side of the larger was occupied by the son of the owner (a young Arab, of Mocha), a respectable old Persian gentleman, and his son, a boy; the larboard side, without other separation than some trunks abaft, and the wheel forward (for they steered below), was our sorry birth. The poop presented a livelier scene: on the after part were four banyans or Hindoo traders bound to Aden; on the starboard side forward sat our grave nakhoda, on the birth in which he slept, and from which day or night he seldom moved, — behind him, a Turk, a merchant of Mosul; on the

other side, four Persians, - -two from the north of Persia, one from the distant and sterile Cabul, and another from the far and fair Cashmeer. The crew lay scattered over the bales in front, all boasting themselves Arabs, but differing greatly in features and complexion; the coarse issue of such mariners of Africa or Arabia, as settle at the ports, and man the vessels, of either shore of the Red Sea: four Siddi men and two boys, black as polished ebony, were the cooks and musicians; two servants, and two slave boys of the old Persian; an Indian pilgrim from beyond the Ganges; ' and a Hindoostannee servant of ours made up, in all, about seventy souls.

About an hour before the break of day, we were generally awakened by the voice of our old Persian, who, in a nasal tone, with loud and rapid utterance, read, if it may be called reading, a large portion of the Koran. A little before sunrise, the serang* gave the loud call to prayers, and all, after a very slight ablution of the hands

* Mate or boatswain.

and feet, assembled; the crew forward, the passengers aft; their faces turned towards Mecca. The serang always led their devotions; the responses were loud and general, in a very full manly tone. Soon after this, coffee was handed round the poop, in cups not larger than egg-cups*, and thin cakes of bread. At noon they had a pilau or curry; in the evening the same. The mat was spread, the tray set, and, after each going to the gangway, and pouring a little water over the right hand, they squatted in circles, the right shoulder inclined a little forward, and silently and rapidly despatched their meal. There is little of indulgence, little of enjoyment, in it; but much of ancient simplicity, and of that sacred sociality which dipping hands in the same dish once

* Egg-shells, I might have said, for they are put into small brass receivers, like eggs into their cups.

+ The crew had plentiful messes of dhourra, or some grain, twice a day, with an allowance of ghee; and we observed that dates were served out to them occasionally, as a kind of favour, like grog. The Siddi cook would carry a large lump of the rich sweet dates, sticking together like tamarinds, to each man.