These Arabian travellers likewise supply us with some information respecting the trade of the Red Sea. The west side of it was in their time nearly deserted by merchant ships; those from the Persian Gulf sailed to Judda on the Arabian coast of it: here were always found many small coasting vessels, by means of which the goods from India, Persia, &c. were conveyed to Cairo. If this particular is accurate, it would seem to prove that at this period the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, which had been rendered navigable by Omrou, was regularly used for the purposes of commerce. In these accounts, the typhon, or whirlwind, so common in the Chinese seas, is mentioned under that appellation: the flying fish and unicorn are described; and we have notices of ambergrise, the musk, and the animal from which it is produced: the last is mentioned as coming from Thibet. The next Arabian author, in point of time, from whom we derive information respecting geography and commerce, is Massoudi. He died at Cairo in 957: he was the author of a work describing the most celebrated kingdoms in Europe, Africa, and Asia; but the details respecting Africa, India, and the lesser Asia, are the most accurate and laboured. The account we shall afterwards give of the geographical knowledge of the Arabians, renders it unnecessary to present any abstract, in this place, of the geographical part of his work; we shall therefore confine ourselves to the notices interspersed respecting commerce. The Arabians traded to nearly every port of India, from Cashmere to Cape Comorin; and seem to have been protected and particularly favoured in their commercial pursuits. In the year 877 a great rebellion occurred in China, and the Arabian merchants had been massacred at Canfn. According to Massoudi, however, in his time this city had recovered from its disasters; confidence had revived; the Arabian merchants from Bassora, and other ports in Persia, resorted to it; and vessels from India and the adjacent islands. He also describes a route to China by land frequented by traders: this seems to have been through Korasin, Thibet, and a country he calls Ilestan. With regard to the Arabian commerce with Africa, the merchants settled at Omar traded to Sofala for gold, and to an island, which is supposed to be Madagascar, where they had established colonies.