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SERIES OF ADVENTURES, &c.

IN THE YEAR M.DCC.LXXVII.

IN LETTERS TO A LADY.

MADAM,

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ERE ability subservient to inclination, were the efforts of the heart to be seconded by the efforts of the imagination, I should with less scruple begin upon the task which you have allotted me. But the feas which I have passed, and the sands which I have wandered over, appear now to have been fraught with lefs danger than the adventure I am about to engage in. Once launched into the literary world, what has not a poor author to fear from the blafts of ridicule, and the rocks of envy! But as the want of an oftentatious difplay has fecured my footsteps from the affault of the wild Arab, so may I hope, that the modesty of my pretenfions may prove my passport through the waste of criticism. Happy at all events, in the profpect of your influence, to protect the strain that is guided by truth, and owes its existence to the commands of

The occurrences of our voyage from Madras to Mocha, are like the generality of fea-affairs, too trivial to become interesting, and too unvaried to afford amusement. Since the fables of the ancients have been banished our creed, a modern voyager finds it difficult to diverfify or embellish his journal. Neptune ceases to affert his empire over the waves, and Amphitrité no longer skims the furface of the deep, seated in a coral chariot drawn by Mermaids, and surrounded by a choir of musical Nereids. A storm therefore loses the majesty which a Divinity would give it; and our calms are really dull, for want of the company of such a beautiful Goddess. I question whether the voyage of Æneas, if deprived of these fictitious ornaments, would not become equally infipid with those published by recent discoverers, whose heroes visited people more strange, and feas more remote than Æneas, and encountered gulphs far more dangerous than Scylla or Charybdis !

There was nothing remarkable in our passage to Mocha, but the length of it. We were above eight weeks in effecting a passage, which frequently requires but three. The lateness of the season made us apprehenfive of delays, but not the continual ones we met with. At several periods we thought of nothing less than of getting to Suez by water. My fellow-travellers and myself were, however, resolved to prosecute our journey by land, should the snow Adventure reach any port in the RedSea. But the fight of land presented us with better prospects.

We had been two-and-forty days in crossing the wide ocean which divides India from Africa, when on the 31st of March we saw indistinctly the island of Socotra, which lies about 35 leagues from the main. On the 2d of April we made Cape Guardafoy, which is a prodigious mountainous and craggy shore. From hence we stood over to the coast of Arabia, and by by an easterly current, were driven so far towards the ocean, that it was the 6th before we past Cape Aden. Here the remains of a Portuguese fort are still visible, which is an humiliating monument of their former superiority in. these parts. On the 9th we ran through the straits of Babelmandel, with a fine gale, which, joined to a strong current, set us through in a quarter of an hour. There is a very ugly sea in these straits, and they being the usual entrance into the Red-Sea, I have annexed a plate of them, which was drawn upon the spot. Vessels may pass to the westward of the island, but this is attended with danger. The gale encreased to such a degree, that we were fain to run under the land at noon, in a bay about half-way between the straits and Mocha. Here we rode out a very violent storm, and thought ourselves lucky in being fo well sheltered from the fury of it. The wind abated a little at day-break on the 10th, when we weighed and stood for Mocha. Though still boisterous, the wind was fortunately fair, and we were not many hours in running the distance. At twelve o'clock we dropped our anchor in Mocha road, but were obliged to wait until the weather moderated, before we ventured to debark. The month of April was advanced, but we went afhore at Mocha the fame evening, in full confidence of being agreeably accommodated to Suez, on board the Adventure. We looked only upon the brighter fide of the perspective; as the difficulties and dangers annexed to a journey of 11 or 1200 miles by land, along a barren and barbarous coaft, could afford us no very pleasing reflections.

Mocha, the ancient capital of Arabia Felix, is situated upon a fandy foil, about 12 leagues from the straits of Babelmandel, and in the latitude of 13° 15' north. This city is of great antiquity, and displays a very handsome appearance towards the fea. But its beauty will not bear a close inspection. Like

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Like the deformities which are so frequently discovered beneath a fair exterior, the infide of its buildings is by no means answerable to the expectations which they raise. To survey the defart on which it stands, a stranger must be surprized at the plenty which reigns in the markets. There is not a tree within ken, that produces any fruit, but the date, or herbage of any kind, to fupport the cattle which are daily exposed for fale. But to the fimplicity of the Arabian manners this circumstance is to be attributed. Where the natives are content with the coarsest food that a country produces, it is no wonder that the more delicate viands are readily procured, by the few Europeans who visit their shores. And indeed, when we are informed that the sheep which are sold here, are all brought from the oppofite coast of Abyssinia, and the simplest vegetable, at no less a diftance than fifteen miles from Mocha, conjecture would lose itself in accounting for fuch plenty, were a clue not given to unravel the mystery.

Mocha is under the authority of a governor, as the Imaun, who unites the offices of high-priest and king of Arabia Felix, always refides at Sennaa, a city about ten days journey from hence, delightfully situated in a valley, with which this mountainous country abounds. The Turks have lost the influence which they formerly possessed in this kingdom. They seem content, at present, to receive their proportion of the duties of the other provinces of Arabia, without pretending to exert the arbitrary sway, which marks their government in the districts that are more imediately within the reach of their arms. There is one privilege that the Imaun claims here, which custom has rendered familiar to the subjects of a despotic state, however oppressive it may appear to the ideas of an European. He has an indisputable property in all horfe-flesh. So that if a stranger takes a liking to an horse, it is of no consequence to whom