_Voyage to Jibbel Zumrud--Return to Cosseir--Sails from Cosseir--Jaffateen Islands--Arrive at Tor._ The Turks and the Bey departed, and with the Turks I dispatched my Arab, Abdel 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 Ababdé 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 much 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 friends the Ababdé. There was great plenty of shell-fish to be picked up on every shoal. I had loaded the vessel with four skins of fresh water, equal to four hogsheads, with cords, and buoys fixed to the end of each of them, so that, if we had been shipwrecked near land, as rubbing two slicks together made us fire, I was not afraid of receiving succour, before we were driven to the last extremity, provided we did not perish in the sea, of which I was not very apprehensive.