the side of a hill, sixteen miles.  Here grow poppies, of which they make opium, but it is not good.  The 26th we came to a coughe[333] house, called Merfadine, in the middle of a plain, sixteen miles.  The 27th, Tayes, a city half as big as Zenan, surrounded by a mud wall.  We staid here two days, in which time I did all I could to recover Mr Pemberton’s boy, whom Hamet aga the governor had forced to become Mahometan, and would on no account part with him.  Walter Talbot, who spoke the Turkish language, was allowed to converse with him in a chamber among other boys.  He told Talbot that he was no Turk, but had been deluded by them, saying that I and all my people were put to death at Zenan, and that he must change his religion if he would save his life, but he refused:  yet they carried him to a bagnio, where he was circumcised by force.  Finding the aga would not deliver the boy, I gave him the kiahya’s letter, desiring him to be given up if not turned; so he was refused.  This city stands in a valley under very high hills, on the top of one of which is a fair strong castle.  All kinds of provisions are here plentiful and cheap, and in the neighbourhood some indigo is made, but I could not learn what quantity or quality.  This city is very populous, as indeed are all the cities and districts we passed through.

[Footnote 333:  It should rather be Kahwah house, signifying a house where they sell coffee.—­Astl.  I. 373. c.]

The 1st March we came to Eufras, sixteen miles through a mountainous and stony country.  This is a small town on the side of a hill, to which many people resort from afar about the 5th of January, where they do some foolish ceremonies at the grave of one of their saints who is buried here, after which they all go on pilgrimage to Mecca.  The governor of this town, though a Turk, used me very civilly on my going up to Zenan; and, on the present occasion, sent a person six miles to meet us at a place where two roads meet, to bring us to this town, where he used us kindly.  The 2d we lodged at a sensor called Assambine, eleven miles, where were only a few poor cottages.  The 3d to another sensor called Accomoth, in a barren common, with a few cottages, thirteen miles.  The 4th to Mousa,[334] seventeen miles, through a barren plain with few inhabitants.  Mousa is a small unwalled town, but very populous, standing in a moderately fertile plain, in which some indigo is made.  We departed from Mousa at midnight, and rested two or three hours at a church, or coughe house,[335] called Dabully, built by a Dabull merchant Our stop was to avoid coming to Mokha before day.[336]

[Footnote 334:  Probably the same place called Mowssi on the journey inland.—­E.]

[Footnote 335:  It is not easy to reconcile this synonime of a coughe house or church, with the explanation formerly given, that coughe house means coffee-house; perhaps we ought to read in the text, a church or mosque, and a coughe or coffee-house.—­E.]