According to his report, the city of Sinan and its neighbourhood will give vent yearly for a good quantity of English cloth, as the weather there is cold for three quarters of the year; and even while he was there, though the height of summer, a person might well endure a furred gown.  Besides, there is a court at that place to which belongs forty or fifty thousand gallant Turks,[294] most of whom wore garments of high-priced Venetian cloth.  Not far from thence there is a leskar, or camp, of 30,000 soldiers,[295] continually in the field against an Arab king in the adjoining mountains, not yet conquered; all of which soldiers are said to wear coats of quilted India chintzes, which are dear, and of little service to defend them from the cold of that region, which is there excessive.  To this I may add the city or Teyes, near which there is a leskar of thirty or forty thousand soldiers, commanded by a German renegado under the pacha of Sinan.  That place, though only about five days journey from Mokha, is very cold, and much cloth is worn by the people about that place.

[Footnote 294:  This is probably a vast exaggeration, though in words at length in the Pilgrims; and we ought more likely to read four or five thousand Turks.—­E.]

[Footnote 295:  A similar reduction to 3000 is probably needful for this army.—­E.]

On the 2d of August the governor sent a rich vest to our captain by the chief shabander, attended by drums and trumpets, his boat being decked out with flags and streamers.  This was delivered with great ceremony, and reverently received.  The Dabul nokhada, Melic Marvet, and Roswan, the nokhada of the Chaul ship, sent us letters of recommendation to their kings, on the 11th August, according to our desire, certifying the friendly usage they had experienced from us at Mokha, and our kind offer to protect them on the homeward voyage, from pirates, and entreating therefore for us freedom of trade and friendly usage in their dominions.  The 14th, as we had formerly done to others, we gave our passes to two Malabar captains, Amet ben Mahomet of Cananore, under Sultan Ala Rajah, and Aba Beker of Calicut, under the Zamorin.

This day there came a galley into the road from Cairo, having many Turks and Jews as passengers, bringing great store of dollars, chekins, coral, damask, sattin, camblet, opium, velvets, and taffetas.  She had come down the whole length of the Red Sea in thirty days.  I had a conference with the Jews, one of whom I had formerly known in Barbary.  They reported that the brother of the former Grand Signior, on being made emperor, had imprisoned his two nephews, and put to death several of the grandees, and had otherwise given great offence to the great men at Constantinople, whereupon he was deposed and imprisoned, and his eldest nephew made emperor in his stead.  They said likewise that an army of 200,000 men was sent against the Persians, for the conquest of Gurgistan, adding various other particulars, some of which turned out true, and others false, like merchants news in general.  Some Turks and Jews desired to have passage for themselves and goods in our ship to Surat; and it is likely, when they know us better, much profit may be made in this way, as their junks are usually pestered with rude people.