The sea afforded us plenty of fish, and I had no doubt but hunger would get the better of our fears of being poisoned: with water we were likewise pretty well supplied, but all this was rendered useless by our being deprived of fire. In short, though we could have killed twenty turtles a-day, all we could get to make fire of, were the rotten dry roots of the rue that we pulled from the clefts of the rock, which, with much ado, served to make fire for boiling our coffee.
The 1st of August we ate drammock, made with cold water and raw flour, mixed with butter and honey, but we soon found this would not do, though I never was hungry, in my life, with so much good provision about me; for, besides the articles already spoken of, we had two skins of wine from Loheia, and a small jar of brandy, which I had kept expressly for a feast, to drink the King's health on arriving in his dominions, the Indian Ocean. I therefore proposed, that, leaving the Rais on board, myself and two men should cross over to the south side, to try if we could get any wood in the kingdom of Adel. This, however, did not please my companions. We were much nearer the Arabian shore, and the Rais had observed several people on land, who seemed to be fishers.
If the Abyssinian shore was bad by its being desert, the danger of the Arabian side was, that we should fall into the hands of thieves. But the fear of wanting, even coffee, was so prevalent, and the repetition of the drammock dose so disgusting, that we resolved to take a boat in the evening, with two men armed, and speak to the people we had seen. Here again the Rais's heart failed him. He said the inhabitants on that coast had fire-arms as well as we,
