[Footnote 15:  Sherif, sharif, in Arabic, more properly denotes one of the descendants of Mahomet.—­Astl. 1. 287. b.]

While we rode from the end of November till the middle of February in this harbour, which has sufficient water for a ship of 500 tons, we one day attempted to take a Portuguese pangaia; but as our boat was so small that our men had not room to move, and as they were armed with ten good guns, like fowling-pieces, we were not able to take them.  For the excellence of its harbour and watering-place; its plenty of fish, of which we took great store with our nets; for sundry sorts of fruits, as cocoa-nuts and others, which were brought to us in abundance by the Moors; and for oxen and poultry, this place is well worth being carefully sought after by such of our ships as shall hereafter pass this way; but our people had good need to beware of the Portuguese.  While we lay here their admiral of the coast, from Melinda to Mozambique, came to view us, and would have taken our boat, if he had found an opportunity.  He was in a galley frigate, or armed pinnace, with eight or nine oars of a side.  We were advertised of the strength of this galley, and their treacherous intentions, by an Arabian Moor, who came frequently to us from the King of Zanzibar, about the delivery of the priest, and afterwards by another Moor, whom we carried from thence along with us:  for, wheresoever we came, we took care to get one or two of the natives into our hands, to learn the languages and conditions of the parts at which we touched.

We had at this place another thunder clap, which shivered our foremast very much, which we fished and repaired with timber from the shore, of which there is abundance, the trees being about forty feet high, the wood red and tough, and, as I suppose, a kind of cedar.  At this place our surgeon, Mr Arnold, negligently caught a great heat, or stroke of the sun, in his head, while on land with the master in search of oxen, owing to which he fell sick, and shortly died, though he might have been cured by letting blood before the disease had settled.  Before leaving this place we procured some thousand weight of pitch, or rather a grey and white gum, like frankincense, as clammy as turpentine, which grows black when melted, and very brittle; but we mixed it with oil, of which we had 300 jars from the prize taken to the north of the equator, not far from Guinea.  Six days before leaving Zanzibar, the head merchant of the factory sent a letter to our captain, in friendship, as he pretended, requesting a jar of wine, a jar of oil, and two or three pounds of gunpowder.  This letter he sent by a negro servant and a Moor, in a canoe.  Our captain sent him all he asked by the Moor, but took the negro along with us, as we understood he had been formerly in the Indies, and knew something of the country.  By this negro we were advertised of a small bark of some thirty tons, called junco by the Moors, which was come hither from Goa, laden with pepper for the factory, and for sale in that kingdom.