India, Ethiopia, Persia, and the Red Sea; but owing to the intolerable heat during the day, the whole business of buying and selling takes place at night, beginning two hours after sunset.  As soon as our brigantines came to anchor in the haven, the customers and searchers came off, demanding what we were, whence we came, what commodities we had on board, and how many men were in each vessel?  After being satisfied on these heads they took away our mast, sails, and other tackle, that we might not depart without paying the customs.

The day after our arrival at Aden, the Mahometans took me prisoner, and put shackles on my legs in consequence of an idolater calling after me that I was a Christian dog[49].  Upon this the Mahometans laid hold of me, and carried me before the lieutenant of the sultan, who assembled his council, to consult with them if I should be put to death as a Christian spy.  The sultan happened to be absent from the city, and as the lieutenant had not hitherto adjudged any one to death, he did not think fit to give sentence against me till my case were reported to the sultan.  By this means I escaped the present danger, and remained in prison 55 days, with an iron of eighteen pounds weight fastened to my legs.  On the second day of my confinement, many Mahometans went in great rage to the lieutenant to demand that I should be put to death as a Portuguese spy.  Only a few days before, these men had difficultly escaped from the hands of the Portuguese by swimming, with the loss of their foists and barks, and therefore greatly desired to be revenged of the Christians, outrageously affirming that I was a Portuguese and a spy.  But God assisted me, for the master of the prison made fast its gates, that these outrageous men might not offer me violence.  At the end of fifty-five days, the sultan sent for me into his presence; so I was placed on the back of a camel with my shackles, and at the end of eight days journey I was brought to the city of Rhada, where the sultan then resided, and where he had assembled an army of 30,000 men to make war upon the sultan of Sanaa, a fair and populous city about three days journey from Rhada, situated partly on the slope of a hill and partly in a plain.  When I was brought before the sultan, he asked me what I was:  on which I answered that I was a Roman, and had professed myself a Mahometan and Mameluke at Babylon in Egypt, or Cairo.  That from motives of religion, and in discharge of a vow, I had made the pilgrimage to Medinathalhabi, to see the body of the Nabi or holy prophet, which was said to be buried there; and that having heard in all the countries and cities through which I passed, of the greatness, wisdom, and virtue of the sultan of Rhada, I had continued my travels to his dominions from an anxious desire to see his face, and I now gave thanks to God and his prophet that I had attained my wish, trusting that his wisdom and justice would see that I was no Christian