void of any safe or pleasant anchorage. It is not, like
the seas of India and China, whose bottom is rich with pearls and
ambergris; whose mountains are stored with gold, precious stones, and
ivory; whose coasts produce ebony, redwood, aloes, camphor, nutmegs,
cloves, sandal, and all other spices and aromatics; where parrots and
peacocks are birds of the forest, and in which musk and civet are collected
in abundance: so productive, in short, are these shores of articles of
infinite variety, and inestimable value, that it were vain to endeavour to
make any enumeration.

Ambergris is thrown upon this coast by the flux of the sea, but its origin
is unknown. It is found on the coast of the Indies, but the best, which is
of a bluish white, and in round lumps, is got upon the Barbarian coast: or
on the confines of the land of the Negroes, towards Sihar and that
neighbourhood. The inhabitants of that country have camels trained for the
purpose, on which they ride along the shore in moonshine nights, and when
the camels perceive a piece of amber, he bends his knees, on which the
rider dismounts, and secures his prize. There is another kind which swims
on the surface of the sea in great lumps, sometimes as big as the body of
an ox, or somewhat less. When a certain fish, named _Tal_, of the whale
tribe, sees these floating lumps, he swallows them, and is thereby killed;
and when the people, who are accustomed to this fishery, see a whale
floating on the surface, they know that this whale has swallowed ambergris,
and going out in their boats, they dart their harpoons into its body, and
tow it on shore, and split the animal down the back, to get out the
ambergris. What is found about the belly of the whale is commonly spoiled
by the wet, and has an unpleasant scent; but the ambergris which is not
contaminated by the ordure in the belly of the whale, is perfectly
good[20].

It is not unusual to employ the vertebrae of this species of whale as
stools; and it is said, there are many houses in the village of Tain, ten
leagues from Siraff, in which the lintels of the doors are made of whale
ribs. An eye-witness told me that he went to see a whale which had been
cast ashore, near Siraff, and found the people mounting on its back by
means of ladders; that they dug pits in different parts of his body, and
when the sun had melted the grease into oil, they collected this, and sold
it to the masters of ships, who mixed it up with some other m