Sec. 2.  Occurrences at Socotora and in the Red Sea.

Sec. 3.  Adventures along with Sir Henry Middleton in the Red Sea, and other
Observations in those Parts, with our Arrival at Bantam.

Sec. 4.  The Voyage of Captain Saris, in the Clove, towards Japan, with
Observations respecting the Dutch and Spaniards at the Molucca Islands.

[Illustration:  Map of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope]

A
general history
and
collection of voyages and travels.

* * * * *

PART II.  BOOK III.

(Continued.)

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX.—­Continued.

Early voyages of the English.  To the east Indies, before the
establishment of an exclusive company.

SECTION IV.

Voyage of Mr John Eldred, by Sea, to Tripoli, in Syria, and thence, by
Land and River, to Bagdat and Basora, in 1583.[1]

I departed from London in the Tiger on Shrove-Tuesday, 1583, in company with Mr John Newberry, Mr Ralph Fitch, and six or seven other honest merchants, and arrived at Tripoli in Syria on the next ensuing 1st of May.  On our arrival, we went a Maying on the Island of St George, where the Christians who die here on ship board are wont to be buried.  In this city of Tripoli our English merchants have a consul, and all of the English nation who come here reside along with him, in a house or factory, called Fondeghi Ingles, which is a square stone building, resembling a cloister, where every person has his separate chamber, as is likewise the custom of all the other Christian nations at this place.

[Footnote 1:  Hakluyt, II. 402.  As Eldred accompanied Newberry and Fitch from England to Basora, this article is, in a great degree, connected with our present purpose:  It may likewise be mentioned, that Eldred is one of the persons with whom Newberry corresponded.—­E.]

Tripolis stands under a part of Mount Lebanon, at the distance of two English miles from the port.  On one side of this port, in the form of a half-moon, there are five block-houses, or small forts, in which there are some good pieces of artillery, and they are occupied by about an hundred janisaries.  Right before the town there is a hill of shifting sand, which gathers and increases with a west wind, insomuch, that they have an old prophecy among them, that this sand hill will one day swallow up and overwhelm the town, as it every year increases and destroys many gardens, though they employ every possible device to diminish this sand-bank, and to render it firm ground.  The city is walled round, though of no