[Footnote 303:  It may be presumed that the position given by Ptolomy is merely accidental, resulting from computed distances; and Pliny only speaks from the authority of Ptolomy.  In all probability Al Kossir, to be afterwards mentioned, is the Berenice of the ancients.—­Astl.]

Half an hour before sunset, we came to an island called Shwarit, but passing onwards a quarter of a league we came to some shelves of sand and others of rock, and anchored between them in a good harbour called Sial.  These shelves and this port are 103 leagues beyond Swakem.  On these shelves we saw a much greater quantity of sea-fowl than had been seen in any part of the Red Sea.  From Ras-al-Nashef to the island of Shwarit may be between 16 and 17 leagues.  After passing Cape Ras-al-Nashef, or the N.W. point of the great bay, the coast winds very much, running into the land, and pushing out again a very long point of land called Ras-al-nef, which two points bear from each other N.E. and S.W. almost 1/4 more N. and S. distant about six leagues large.  From Ras-al-nef forwards, the coast winds directly to the N.W. till we come to Swarit, the distance being between 10 and 11 leagues.  In this distance the sea is only in three places foul with shoals; first to seaward of the island of Connaka, where there is a large fair shoal rising above water in a great ridge of large rocks; and running a long way toward the land; the second place is at the island of Shwarit, as both to the east and west of this island great shoals and flats stretch towards the main-land, so as apparently to shut up the sea entirely between that island and the main; the third is at this harbour of Sial where we anchored, where the sea is studded thick with innumerable shoals and flats, so that no part remains free.  The island of Shwarit is a gun-shot in length and nearly as much in breadth, all low land, with a great green bush in the middle, and opposite to its east side there is a great rock like an island. Shwarit is little more than half a league from the main-land.

From Swakem all the way to Ras-al-nef, the countries are all inhabited by Badwis or Bedouins, who follow the law of Mahomet, and from Ras-al-nef, upwards to Suez and the end of this sea, the coast all belongs to Egypt, the inhabitants of which dwell between the coast of the Red Sea and the river Nile.  Cosmographers in general call the inhabitants of both these regions Ethiopians.  Ptolomy calls them Egyptian Arabs:  Pomponius Mela and other cosmographers name them in general Arabs; but we ought to follow Ptolomy, as he was the prince of cosmographers.  These Egyptian Arabs, who inhabit the whole country from the mountains to the sea, are commonly called Bedwis or Bedouins, of whose customs and manner of life we shall treat in another place.