In the first book, no mention is made of the sea which stretches away to the right, as ships depart from Oman and the coast of Arabia, to launch out into the great sea:  and the author describes only the sea on the left hand, in which are comprehended the seas of India and China.  In this sea, to the right as you leave Oman, is the country of Sihar or Shihr, where frankincense grows, and other countries possessed by the nations of Ad, Hamyar, Jorham, and Thabatcha, who have the Sonna, in Arabic of very ancient date, but differing in many things from what is in the hands of the Arabs, and containing many traditions unknown to us.  They have no villages, and live a very hard and miserably wandering life; but their country extends almost as far as Aden and Judda on the coast of Yaman, or Arabia the happy.  From Judda, it stretches up into the continent, as far as the coast of Syria, and ends at Kolzum.  The sea at this place is divided by a slip of land, which God hath fixed as a line of separation between the two seas[17].  From Kolzum the sea stretches along the coast of the Barbarians, to the west coast, which is opposite to Yaman, and then along the coast of Ethiopia, from whence we have the leopard skins of Barbary[18], which are the best of all, and the most skilfully dressed; and lastly, along the coast of Zeilah, whence come excellent amber and tortoiseshell.

When the Siraff ships arrive in the Red Sea, they go no farther than Judda, whence their cargo is transported to Cairo, or Kahira by ships of Kolsum, the pilots of which are acquainted with the navigation of the upper end of this sea, which is full of rocks up to the water’s edge; because, also, along the coast there are no kings[19], and scarcely any inhabitants; and because, every night ships are obliged to put into some place for safety, for fear of striking on the rocks, or must ride all night at anchor, sailing only in the day-time.  This sea is likewise subject to very thick fogs, and to violent gales of wind, and is therefore of very dangerous navigation, and devoid of any safe or pleasant anchorage.  It is not, like the seas of India and China, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris; whose mountains are stored with gold, precious stones, and ivory; whose coasts produce ebony, redwood, aloes, camphor, nutmegs, cloves, sandal, and all other spices and aromatics; where parrots and peacocks are birds of the forest, and in which musk and civet are collected in abundance:  so productive, in short, are these shores of articles of infinite variety, and inestimable value, that it were vain to endeavour to make any enumeration.