knife, nor an Arab servant armed, though they were all well dressed; but he had in his court-yard about threescore of the finest horses I had for a long time seen. We dined, just opposite to them, in a small saloon strowed with India carpets; the walls were covered with white tiles, which I suppose he had got from India; yet his house, without, was a very common one, distinguished only from the rest in the village by its size.
He seemed to have a more rational knowledge of things, and spoke more elegantly than any man I had conversed with in Arabia. He said he had lost the only seven sons he had, in one month, by the small-pox: And when I attempted to go away, he wished I would stay with him some time, and said, that I had better take up my lodgings in his house, than go on board the boat that night, where I was not perfectly in safety. On my seeming surprised at this, he told me, that last year, a vessel from Mascatte, on the Indian Ocean, had quarrelled with his people; that they had fought on the shore, and several of the crew had been killed; that they had obstinately cruized in the neighbourhood, in hopes of reprisals, till, by the change of the monsoon, they had lost their passage home, and so were necessarily confined to the Red Sea for six months afterwards; he added, they had four guns, which they called patareroes, and that they would certainly cut us off, as they could not miss to fall in with us. This was the very worst news that I had ever heard, as to what might happen at sea. Before this, we thought all strangers were our friends, and only feared the natives of the coast for enemies; now, upon a bare defenceless shore, we found ourselves likely to be a prey to both natives and strangers.
