Perim is a low island, its harbour good, fronting the Abyssinian shore. It is a barren, bare rock, producing, on some parts of it, plants of absynthium, or rue, in others kelp, that did not seem to thrive; it was at this time perfectly scorched by the heat of the sun, and had only a very faint appearance of having ever vegetated. The island itself is about five miles in length, perhaps more, and about two miles in breadth. It becomes narrower at both ends. Ever since we anchored at the Cape, it had begun to blow strongly from the west, which gave our Rais great apprehension, as, he said, the wind sometimes continued in that point for fifteen days together. This alarmed me not a little, least, by missing Mahomet Gibberti, we should lose our voyage. We had rice and butter, honey and flour. 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.