ble price, they say, "It is of greater value than a ship of
Jodda." An hundred and eighteen leagues from thence lies Toro, and near
it the ruins of an ancient monastery. This is the place, if the report
of the inhabitants deserves any credit, where the Israelites miraculously
passed through the Red Sea on dry land; and there is some reason for
imagining the tradition not ill grounded, for the sea is here only three
leagues in breadth. All the ground about Toro is barren for want of
water, which is only to be found at a considerable distance, in one
fountain, which flows out of the neighbouring mountains, at the foot of
which there are still twelve palm-trees. Near Toro are several wells,
which, as the Arabs tell us, were dug by the order of Moses to quiet the
clamours of the thirsty Israelites. Suez lies in the bottom of the Gulf,
three leagues from Toro, once a place of note, now reduced, under the
Turks, to an inconsiderable village, where the miserable inhabitants are
forced to fetch water at three leagues' distance. The ancient Kings of
Egypt conveyed the waters of the Nile to this place by an artificial
canal, now so choked with sand, that there are scarce any marks remaining
of so noble and beneficial a work.

The first place to be met with in travelling along the coast of Africa is
Rondelo, situate over against Toro, and celebrated for the same
miraculous passage. Forty-five leagues from thence is Cocir. Here ends
that long chain of mountains that reaches from this place even to the
entrance of the Red Sea. In this prodigious ridge, which extends three
hundred leagues, sometimes approaching near the sea, and sometimes
running far up into the land, there is only one opening, through which
all that merchandise is conveyed, which is embarked at Rifa, and from
thence distributed through all the east. These mountains, as they are
uncultivated, are in some parts shaded with large forests, and in others
dry and bare. As they are exceedingly high, all the seasons may be here
found together; when the storms of winter beat on one side, on the other
is often a serene sky and a bright sunshine. The Nile runs here so near
the shore that it might without much difficulty be turned through this
opening of the mountains into the Red Sea, a design which many of the
Emperors have thought of putting in execution, and thereby making a
communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, but have been
discouraged either