From Beit el Fakih they proceeded to Mokha, where, as at Cairo, Europeans were compelled to enter the city by a particular gate, on foot, as a mark of humiliation. Niebuhr found that he and his companions were here taken for Turks, and they were accordingly directed to the khan, or inn, where the Osmanlis usually took up their abode. Though they understood that there was an English merchant at Mokha, they judged it unnecessary, in the first instance, to make application to him, as they had everywhere else in Yemen been received with politeness and hospitality; and besides, they were somewhat apprehensive that, from their dress and appearance, he might be led to regard them as vagabonds or renegades. They therefore addressed themselves to an Arab merchant, by whom they were well received. The people of Mokha made some pretensions to civilization, which is unfortunate, as the term, at least in the East, means custom-house officers, and insolence towards strangers. Our travellers, though no merchants, had large quantities of baggage, which, of course, was taken to the custom-house, before they could be allowed to enjoy the use of it. I have already observed, that although Niebuhr himself was a temperate, perhaps even an abstemious man, his companions set a high value on the gratification of their senses. Von Haven himself, who, as I have already observed, shortly afterward fell a victim to his indiscretion, was still among them, and it may therefore be easily imagined that the first articles they were desirous of obtaining from the custom-house were their cooking utensils and their beds. The Arabs, however, were differently minded. They allowed their curiosity to fasten upon the cases in which the natural history specimens were packed, and resolved to begin with them. Among these, unfortunately, there was a small barrel containing various fish of the Red Sea, preserved in spirits of wine. This M. Forskaal, who had collected these fishes himself, injudiciously requested the officers to allow to pass unopened. The request immediately roused all their suspicions. He might, for aught they knew, be a magician, who had confined the Red Sea itself in that barrel, for the purpose of carrying it off, with all its fishes, into Europe. It behooved them, therefore, to bestir themselves. Accordingly the barrel was the first thing opened; but when the operation had been performed, the result anticipated by the naturalist was produced, for so pungent, so atrocious a stink was emitted from the half-putrefied fish, that the authorities very probably apprehended them to be a troop of assassins, commissioned by the devil to administer perdition through the nostrils to all true believers. The custom-house officer, however, confiding in the protection of the Prophet, determined to brave the infernal odour, and in order to explore the abomination to the bottom, took out the horrid remains of the fish, and stirred up the liquor with a piece of iron.