But matters are widely different if she is bound for Sofala; her course is nearly south-west, and she meets at Cape Gardefan a strong south-wester that blows directly in her teeth. Being obliged to return into the gulf, she mistakes this for a trade-wind, because she is not able to make her voyage to Mocha but by the summer monsoon, which carries her no farther than the Straits of Babelmandeb, and then leaves her in the face of a contrary wind, a strong current to the northward, and violent swell. The attempting this voyage with sails, in these circumstances, was absolutely impossible, as their vessels went only before the wind: if it was performed at all, it must have been by oars[282], and great havock and loss of men must have been the consequence of the several trials. This is not conjecture only; the prophet Ezekiel describes the very fact. Speaking of the Tyrian voyages probably of this very one he says, “Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters (the ocean): the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas[283].” In short, the east, that is the north-east wind, was the very monsoon that was to carry them to Sofala, yet having no sails, being upon a lee-shore, a very bold coast, and great swell, it was absolutely impossible with oars to save themselves from destruction. At last philosophy and observation, together with the unwearied perseverance of man bent upon his own views and interest, removed these difficulties, and shewed the mariners of the Arabian Gulf, that these periodical winds, which, in the beginning, they looked upon as invincible barriers to the trading to Sofala, when once understood, were the very means of performing this voyage safely and expeditiously. The vessel trading to Sofala sailed, as I have said, from the bottom of the Arabian Gulf in summer, with the monsoon at north, which carried her to Mocha. There the monsoon failed her by the change of the direction of the Gulf. The south-west winds, which blow without Cape Gardefan in the Indian Ocean, forced themselves round the Cape so as to be felt in the road of Mocha, and make it uneasy riding there. But these soon changed, the weather became moderate, and the vessel, I suppose in the month of August, was safe at anchor under Cape Gardefan, where was the port which, many years afterwards, was called Promontorium Aromatum. Here the ship was obliged to stay all November, because all these summer months the wind south of the Cape was a strong south-wester, as hath been before said, directly in the teeth of the voyage to Sofala. But this time was not lost; part of the goods bought to be ready for the return was ivory, frankincense, and myrrh; and the ship was then at the principal mart for these.