vice. Mr Boughton had for his dinner three hens, with
rice, his drink being water, and a black liquor called _cahu_, [coffee]
drank as hot as could be endured.

"On a hill, a mile from Tamara, there is a square castle, but we could
not get leave to see it. The inhabitants are of four sorts. The first
are Arabs, who have come in by means of conquest, who dare not speak in
presence of the sultan without leave, and kissing his hand. The second
sort are slaves, who kiss his foot when they come into his presence, do
all his work, and make his aloes. The third sort are the old inhabitants
of the country, called Bedouins, though I think these are not the oldest
of all, whom I suppose to have been those commonly called Jacobite
Christians: For, on Mr Boughton going into a church of theirs, which the
Arabs had forced them to abandon, he found some images and a crucifix,
which he took away. The Mahomedans would not say much about these
people, lest other Christians might relieve or support them. These
Bedouins, having had wars with the Arabs, live apart from them in the
mountains. The fourth kind of people, or original natives, are very
savage, poor lean, naked, and wear their hair long. They eat nothing but
roots, ride about on buffaloes, conversing only among themselves, being
afraid of all others, having no houses, and live more like wild beasts
than men, and these we conjecture to have been the original natives of
the place.

"The island is very mountainous and barren, having some beeves, goats,
and sheep, a few dates and oranges, a little rice, and nothing else for
the food of man. All its commodities consist of aloes, the inspisated
juice of a plant having a leaf like our house-leek. The only manufacture
is a very poor kind of cloth, used only by slaves. The king had some
dragon's blood, and some Lahore indigo, as also a few civet cats and
civet. The dead are all buried in tombs, and the monuments of their
saints are held in much veneration. The chief of these was one _Sidy
Hachun_,[167] buried at Tamara, who was slain about an hundred years
before we were there, and who, as they pretend, still appears to them,
and warns them of approaching dangers. They hold him in wonderful
veneration, and impute high winds to his influence."--T.R.

[Footnote 167: Sidy, or Seid, signifies a descendant or relative of
Mahomet, and Hachem, a prophet.--E.]

The 31st of August we sailed from Socotora. The 10th September we had
quails, hero