Travels to Discover Source of Nile Author:James Bruce Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. XI. Poyage to Jibbel Zumrud—Return to Cosseir—Sail from Cosseir—Jaffateen Islands—Arrive at Tor. J. He Turks and the Bey departed, and with the Turks... more » I dispatched my Arab, Abd-el-gin, not only giving him something myself, but recommending him to my beneficent countrymen at Jidda, if he should go there. I now took up my quarters in the castle, and as the Ababde had told strange stories about the Mountain of Emeralds, I determined, till my captain should return, to make a voyage thither. There was no possibility of knowing the distance by report; sometimes, it was twenty-five miles, sometimes, it was fifty, sometimes, it was a hundred, and God knows how many more. I chose a man who had been twice at these mountains of emeralds; with the best boat then in the harbour, and on Tuesday the 14th of March, we sailed, with the wind at north east, from the harbour of Cosseir, about an hour before the dawn of day. We kept coasting along, with a very moderate wind, much diverted with the red and green appearances of the marble mountains upon the coast. Our vessel had one sail, like a straw mattress, made of the leaves of a kind of palm tree, which they call Doom. It was fixed above, and drew up like a curtain, but did not lower with a yard like a sail; so that, upon stress of weather, if the sail was furled, it was so top-heavy,that the ship must founder, or the mast be carried away. But, by way of indemnification, the planks of the vessel were sewed together, and there was not a nail, nor a piece of iron, in the whole ship ; so that, when you struck upon a rock, seldom any damage ensued. For my own part, from an absolute detestation of her whole construction, I insisted upon keeping close along shore, at an easy sail. The continent, to the leeward of us, belonged to our ...« less