to the Italian mode of reckoning; which
begins the day at sunset, and counts the hours successively round from
_one_ to _twenty-four_; instead of dividing the entire day into twice
twelve hours, as is customary with the English and other European
nations."[214]--_Astl_.

[Footnote 214: The Editor of Astleys Collection does not seem aware that
in the British marine, the day begins at noon, instead of the civil day
which begins at midnight.--E.]

SECTION I.

_The Venetian Merchants and Mariners at Alexandria are pressed into the
Turkish service, and sent to Suez. Description of that place. Two
thousand men desert from the Gallies. Tor. Island of Soridan. Port of
Kor_.

This voyage was performed by compulsion, having been forced to accompany
the eunuch Solyman Pacha, who was sent by Solyman Shah emperor of the
Turks on an expedition against the Portuguese in India. At the time when
the war broke out in 1537, between the republic of Venice and the Turks,
a fleet of trading gallies happened to be at Alexandria in Egypt,
commanded by Antonio Barbarigo, and remained there without opportunity
of trading or taking in goods till the 7th of September; on that day
Almaro Barbaro the Venetian consul, the captain Antonio Barbarigo, and
all the merchants and seamen, with every thing belonging to them, were
seized and lodged in the _tower of Lances_. After this, all of them that
belonged to the sea, and the author of this voyage among the rest, were
taken from the tower and sent by fifty at a time to Cairo; whence
Solyman Pacha, having selected the gunners, rowers, carpenters,
caulkers, and officers, sent them by companies to Suez to assist in
fitting out the fleet in that port against his own arrival.

Suez stands in a desert place, where grows no herb of any kind. At this
place the ships are built which are designed for India. All the timber
of which they are built, with the iron work, and every kind of tackle,
are brought from Satalia and Constantinople to Alexandria; whence they
are carried on the Nile in jerbs or barks to Cairo, and thence on the
backs of camels to Suez, where Pharaoh was drowned. On the road from
Cairo to Suez, which is eighty miles, there is not a single habitation,
and no water or any thing whatever for eating is to be found, so that
the caravans before setting out must supply themselves with water from
the Nile. In former times, Suez was a great city well supplied with
cisterns for holding water, and