We left Jibbel Teir on the 11th with little wind at west, but towards mid-day it freshened as usual, and turned northward to N. N. east. We were now in mid-channel, so that we stood on straight for Dahalac till half past four, when a boy, who went aloft, saw four islands in a direction N. W. by W.¼ west. We were standing on with a fresh breeze, and all our sails full, when I saw, a little before sun-set, a white-fringed wave of the well-known figure of a breaker. I cried to the Rais for God’s sake to shorten sail, for I saw a breaker a-head, straight in our way. He said there was no such thing; that I had mistaken it, for it was a sea-gull. About seven in the evening we struck upon a reef of coral rocks. Arabs are cowards in all sudden dangers, which they consider as particular directions or mandates of providence, and therefore not to be avoided. Few uncultivated minds indeed have any calmness, or immediate resource in themselves when in unexpected danger. The Arab sailors were immediately for taking the boat, and sailing to the islands the boy had seen. The Abyssinians were for cutting up the planks and wood of the inside of the vessel, and making her a raft. A violent dispute ensued, and after that a battle, when night overtook us, still fast upon the rock. The Rais and Yasine, however, calmed the riot, when I begged the passengers would hear me. I told them, “You all know, or should know, that the boat is mine, as I bought it with my money, for the safety and accommodation of myself and servants; you know, likewise, that I and my men are all well armed, while you are naked; therefore do not imagine that we will suffer any of you to enter that boat, and save your lives at the expence of ours. On this vessel of the Rais is your dependence, in it you are to be saved or to perish; therefore all hands to work, and get the vessel off, while it is calm; if she had been materially damaged, she had been sunk before now.” They all seemed on this to take courage, and said, they hoped I would not leave them. I told them, if they would be men, I would not leave them while there was a bit of the vessel together.