th.

The 6th I went ashore, and caused all the wells to be emptied and
cleaned out, for fear of poison; having been often told at Mokha, that
the Turks had practised with the people of Assab to poison the wells.
The 13th, the king of this country hearing of my escape from Mokha, sent
me a complimentary letter and a present. The 17th, a vessel came over
from Mokha, in which was Tocorsi and another Banian, bringing with them
the provisions I had desired them to buy for us, and the money they owed
me; but as for the writing confirming the peace, they made excuse that
the pacha was so much occupied in war that he could not get it attended
to; which was a manifest warning that they would give no quarter to our
nation. Wherefore, on the 24th, we sailed from Assab, plying to windward
as far as Kamaran, to wait the arrival of a large ship, which comes
yearly from Sues to Mokha richly laden, hoping by her means to be amply
revenged for all the losses and disgraces I had incurred from the Turks;
and I the more anxiously wished to meet with her, as I understood the
two traitors, Jaffer pacha and Regib aga, had both great adventures in
that ship. From the 24th therefore to 31st July we plyed to windward for
this purpose, sailing by day and anchoring all night, in which period we
narrowly escaped many dangers, being in want of a pilot, being many
times in imminent danger of running aground, to the hazard and loss of
all, had not God preserved us. But the ship of Sues escaped us in the
night, as we found on our return towards the south.

Sec. 5. _Voyage from the Red Sea to Surat, and Transactions there_.

We set sail from the neighbourhood of Mokha in the morning of the 9th
August, 1611, and in the evening cast anchor three leagues short of the
straits of Bab-al-Mondub. The 10th, the Darling and Release[338] went
out by the western passage, which they found to be three leagues over,
from the main land of _Habesh_ to the island _Bab-Mandel_, [Prin.] One
third of the way over from the island they had no ground at forty
fathoms, the channel being quite clear and free from danger, though the
Turks and Indians reported it was full of rocks and shoals, and not
navigable for ships. We in the Increase, accompanied by the
Pepper-corn, went out by the eastern narrow channel at which we came in,
which does not exceed a mile and half between the island and the Arabian
shore, of which a considerable distance from the main is encumbered with
sho