The 3d, we sailed at half past four in the morning, our course W. S. W. but it fell calm; after having made about a league, we found ourselves off Ras Hateba, or the Woody Cape, which bore due east of us. After doubling the cape, the wind freshening, at four o’clock in the afternoon we anchored in the port of Jidda, close upon the key, where the officers of the custom-house immediately took possession of our baggage.
[Illustration: _Arab Shekh; Tribe Beni Koreish._
_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1^{ st}. 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]
_Occurrences at Jidda--Visit of the Vizir--Alarm of the Factory--Great Civility of the English trading from India--Polygamy--Opinion of Dr Arbuthnot ill-founded--Contrary to Reason and Experience--Leave Jidda._
The port of Jidda is a very extensive one, consisting of numberless shoals, small islands, and sunken rocks, with channels, however, between them, and deep water. You are very safe in Jidda harbour, whatever wind blows, as there are numberless shoals which prevent the water from ever being put into any general motion; and you may moor head and stern, with twenty anchors out if you please. But the danger of being lost, I conceive, lies in the going in and coming out of the harbour. Indeed the observation is here verified, the more _dangerous_ the _port_, the _abler_ the _pilots_, and no accidents ever happen.
There is a draught of the harbour of Jidda handed about among the English for many years, very inaccurately, and very ill laid down, from what authority I know not, often condemned, but never corrected; as also a pretended chart of the upper part of the Gulf, from Jidda to Mocha, full of soundings. As I was some months at Jidda, kindly entertained, and had abundance of time, Captain Thornhill, and some other of the gentlemen trading thither, wished me to make a survey of the harbour, and promised me the assistance of their officers, boats, and crews. I very willingly undertook it to oblige them. Finding afterwards, however, that one of their number, Captain Newland, had undertaken it, and that he would be hurt by my interfering, as he was in some manner advanced in the work, I gave up all further thoughts of the plan. He was a man of real ingenuity and capacity, as well as very humane, well behaved, and one to whom I had been indebted for every sort of attention.