"After much trouble with different applicants, all of whom were alike solicitous to let us a vessel, and alike determined to make

us pay heavily, we engaged a fine khanja, called the Saaba (or Cloud), to convey us to Kosseir; we also hired as servant and interpreter, a fine Arab youth, who had been much about the American factory in his boyhood, and enjoyed the rare advantage of learning our language at that early age. As far as he knew it, he pronounced it not only well, but with a peculiarly pleasing accent. The day before we took our departure, this young Arab was married. An advance of twenty dollars provided his wedding feast, and the apparel of his bride: and, after an absence of eighteen hours, he returned in wedding garments, with a new sabre, of which he was not a little vain, and cheerfully prepared for the voyage. The same evening we embarked, and sailed away from Mocha. Our vessel* was delightfully cool,

* These sort of boats, though very large, are without any deck, save a little on the bows and that of the awn

D

airy, convenient, and entirely to ourselves. We had a nakhoda, a pilot, and about twenty seamen, and we had allowed a messenger, returning to Djidda, whence he had been sent with despatches for our resident, to embark with us.

This first night we sailed throughout, and dropped anchor the next afternoon, near the little rocky isle of Kamaran : the following day we ran past Loheia, and again anchored at sunset; this, in fact, afterwards was the regular custom. We were thirteen days running to Djidda; the navigation is intricate, the shoals of coral numerous, but the waters smooth, and clear as pilot could desire; 'twas beautiful to look down into this brightly-transparent sea, and mark the coral here in large masses of honeycombed rock, there in light branches of a pale-red hue, and the beds of green seaweed, and the golden sand, and the shells, and the fish sporting round your

ing, under which is the cabin, open to the front, without ports or windows, but with a neat open-work at the sides, superior to either for light, air, and cheerfulness.

1

vessel, and making colours, of a beauty to your eye, which is not their own.

Twice or thrice we ran on after dark for an hour or two, and though we were all familiar with the "sparkling of the sea round the boat of night," never have I seen it, in other waters, so superlatively splendid. A rope dipped in it, and drawn forth, came up as a string of string of gems, but with a light, and life, and motion, the diamond does not know.

At a place called Camfidia, we landed, and had little satisfaction for our trouble. We got into our small boat, and rowed for the shore; but, as she soon grounded, we had to wade some hundred yards through the water. The town appeared a miserable, ruined place, with a broken-down wall. We were not allowed to enter, but took a walk and run on the beach. Here some rough-looking fellows, armed, came and told our Arab youth that the sultaun, as they termed the slave, who ruled this petty fishing port, ordered us to our vessel, as he never suffered Christians to land there. They had insult, and even menace in their

manner: we walked back, but with that leisure pace, that tone, and those smiles which belong to stifled vexation. A few minutes after the dowlah repented, and sent to invite us in, but it was now our turn to decline; so, with naked limbs, we splashed our way back to the boat, overtaken by part of our smiling, good-tempered crew, who had been to the bazaar; and consoled by our young Arab, who, with the amusing air of a Mocha citizen, said they were a poor, ignorant race, and governed by an African black. Abdallah, however, the messenger, not a little diverted us, for he came on board boasting that he had quarrelled with the dowlah about us, had been threatened with the bastinado, and had, in his turn, threatened to bring down the vengeance of pashas and agas, and I know not whom, upon this poor governor.

Abdallah was a strange being, quite a character; his father had been a Turk, his mother an Arab, and he born an Alexandriote; in his boyhood having lived with an English officer, when our troops.

were in Egypt, and, as a man, having long served as a spy, and letter-carrier for Ali Pasha; a large, dark fellow, familiar with the tossing wave, and the sandy camel path, talking such broken language as would make him intelligible be driven where he might; a slave to no fears in risking his neck for money, and to no prejudices of faith, custom, or country, in seeking the pleasures which it afforded; though a servant himself, he had a poor fellow as his, named, I remember, Mouseh (Moses), and this ancient name he was continually vociferating, now for dates, now coffee and the pipe, and, not unfrequently, for the less orthodox indulgence of good strong brandy.

Deducting largely from the truth of them, he made us smile at some of his tales and adventures, having travelled, as he told us, half over the Turkish dominions in Greece, in Italy, in France, and in England, that is, at Gibraltar !

We found it necessary, though, to keep him at a distance; and, by doing so, caused him to behave very respectfully, and with propriety.