people should soon be sent to Mokha, where I and twenty-nine more were to remain till all the India ships were come in, and the winds settled westerly, and then I and all my company should be allowed to embark and proceed on our voyage to India.  I requested that he would not detain so many of us; but he answered, “Thirty have I said, and thirty shall remain.”  I then asked if our goods should be returned.  He answered no, for they were all put to the account of the grand signior.  I asked if all my people should be allowed to depart at the time appointed.  To which he answered, that not one should be detained, not even if I had a Turkish slave, and I might depend on his word.

Having given him thanks for his kindness, as counselled by the kiahya, he began to excuse himself; and to praise his own clemency, saying, it was happy for us we had fallen into his hands, as if it had been in the time of any of his predecessors, we had all suffered death for presuming to come so near their holy city.  He said, what had been done was by order of the grand signior, proceeding upon the complaints of the pachas of Cairo and Swaken, and the sharif of Mecca, who represented that, when the Ascension and her pinnace were in the Red Sea, they had bought up all the choice goods of India, by which the Turkish customs were much diminished; and, if allowed to continue, it would ruin the trade of the Red Sea.  Wherefore the grand signior had given orders, if any more Englishmen or other Christians came into these parts, to confiscate their ships and goods, and to kill or reduce to slavery all their men they could get hold of.

In the mean time many of our people fell sick, and became weak through grief, cold, bad air, bad diet, wretched lodging, and heavy irons.  I never ceased urging the kiahya, till he procured their liberations from the loathsome prison; so that on the 11th February they were freed from their irons, and had a house in the town to live in, with liberty to walk about.  Next day the kiahya sent me six bullocks for my men, so that in a few days, with wholesome food and exercise, they recovered their former health and strength.  The kiahya informed me, that Regib aga had written to the pacha to send us all down to Aden, to be there taken on board his ships; by which means his town of Mokha, and the India ships in passing the bab[331] would be freed from the danger of suffering any harm from our ships.  This advice had nearly prevailed with the pacha, but was counteracted for our good by the kiahya.

[Footnote 331:  This is the gate or straits of Bab-al-Mondub, or Babel Mandel, as corruptly called by Europeans.—­Astl I. 372. a,]