the largest island in the Red Sea, is thus described by Mr Bruce. It is low and even, the soil fixed gravel and white sand, mixed with shells and other marine productions. It is destitute of all sorts of herbage, at least in summer, unless a small quantity of bent grass, just sufficient to feed the few antelopes and goats that are on the island. There is a very beautiful species of this last animal found here, small, short-hair-

Connected as they are with the object discussed in the text, we beg leave with our author to suggest the following particulars, as proper objects of examination and experiment, viz. Is the quantity of caseous matter afforded by milk necessarily connected with the proportion of cream that milk contains, or does it depend upon some other principle not hitherto investigated? Without pretending to decide this question, Dr Anderson feels himself strongly inclined to believe it does not depend upon the quantity of cream. It is well known that cow's milk, which always throws up more cream, and that of a much richer quality, than ewe-milk, does in no case afford above one half the proportion of cheese that ewe milk does. Nor can this singular tendency of ewe-milk, to yield a great proportion of curd, be attributed to its superior thickness; for cow-milk can be often had that is thicker and richer than ewe-milk, but it always affords a much smaller proportion of curd. From these considerations, it is not impossible but it might be found, upon a careful investigation, that the refuse milk, which ought to be separated from the other in making the best butter, might be equally proper, or very nearly so, for making cheese, as if no such separation had been made. We therefore recommend this as a proper object of experimental enquiry. DAH [474] DAH

ed, with thin black sharp horns, having rings upon them, and they are very swift of foot.

This island is, in many places, covered with large plantations of acacia trees, which grow to no height, seldom above eight feet, but spread wide, and turn flat at top, probably by the influence of the wind from the sea. Though in the neighbourhood of Abyssinia, Dahalac does not partake of its seasons, no rain falls here from the end of March to the beginning of October; but in the intermediate months, especially December, January, and February, there are violent showers for 12 hours at a time, which deluge the island, and fill the cisterns so as to serve all next summer; for there are no hills nor mountains in Dahalac, and consequently no springs. These cisterns alone preserve the water, and of them there yet remain 370, all hewn out of the solid rock. They say these were the works of the Persians; it is more probable they were those of the first Ptolemies. But whoever were the constructors of these magnificent reservoirs, they were a very different people from those that now possess them, who have not industry enough to keep one of the 370 clear for the use of man. All of them are open to every sort of animal, and half full of the filth they leave there, after drinking and washing in them; yet one of these cisterns, cleaned and shut up with a door, might afford them wholesome sweet water all the year over.

After the rains fall, a prodigious quantity of grass immediately springs up; and the goats give the inhabitants milk, which in winter is the principal part of their subsistence, for they neither plow nor sow; all their employment is to work the vessels which trade to the different parts of the coast. One half of the inhabitants is constantly on the Arabian side, and by their labour is enabled to furnish with dora (millet or Indian corn) and other provisions the other half who stay at home; and when their time is expired, they are relieved by the other half, and supplied with necessaries in their turn. But the sufficiency of the poorer sort is entirely shell and other fish. Their wives and daughters are very bold and expert fisher-women. Several of them, entirely naked, swam off to the vessel before it came to an anchor, begging handfuls of wheat, rice, or dora. They are very importunate and flabby beggars, and not easily put off with denials. These miserable people, who live in the villages not frequented by barks from Arabia, are sometimes a whole year without taking bread. Yet such is the attachment to their place of nativity, they prefer living in this bare, barren, parched spot, almost in want of necessaries of every kind, especially of these essential ones, bread and water, to those pleasant and plentiful countries on both sides of them.

There are in Dahalac twelve villages or towns, of which each has a plantation of doormtrees round it, which furnish the only manufacture in the island. The leaves of this tree, when dried, are of a glossy white, which might very easily be mistaken for satin; of these they make baskets of surprising beauty and neatness, staining part of the leaves with red or black, and working them into figures very artificially. Our author knew some of these, resembling straw-baskets, continue full of water for 24 hours, without one drop coming through. They sell these at Lobeia and Jidda, the largest of them for four commesh, or sixpence. This is the employment, or rather amusement, of the men who stay at home; for they work but very moderately at it, and all of them indeed take special care not to prejudice their health by any kind of fatigue from industry.

People of the better sort, such as the Sheik and his relations, men privileged to be idle, and never exposed to the sun, are of a brown complexion. But the common sort employed in fishing, and those who go constantly to sea, are not indeed black but red, and little darker than the colour of new mahogany.

The inhabitants of Dahalac seem to be a simple, fearful, and inoffensive people. It is the only part of Africa or Arabia (call it which you please) where you see no one carry arms of any kind: neither gun, knife, nor sword, is to be seen in the hands of any one. Whereas at Lobeia, and on all the coast of Arabia, and more particularly at Yambo, every person goes armed; even the porters, naked and groaning under the weight of their burden and heat of the day, have yet a leather belt, in which they carry a crooked knife, so monstrously long, that it needs a particular motion and address in walking not to lame the bearer. This was not always the case at Dahalac; several of the Portuguese, on their first arrival here, were murdered, and the island often treated ill, in revenge, by the armaments of that nation. The men seemed healthy. They told our author they had no diseases among them, unless sometimes in spring, when the boats of Yemen and Jidda bring the small-pox among them, and very few escape with life that are infected. He did not observe among them a man that seemed to be fifty years old; from which he inferred, that they are not long-lived, though the air should be healthy, as being near the channel, and as they have the north wind all summer, which moderates the heat.

Dahalac, like all the other islands in the Red Sea, depends upon Mafuah. The revenue of its governor consists in a goat brought to him monthly by each of the twelve villages. Every vessel that puts in there for Mafuah pays him also a pound of coffee, and every one from Arabia a dollar or pataca. No sort of small money is current at Dahalac, excepting Venetian glass-beads, old and new, of all sizes and colours, broken and whole.

Although this is the miserable state of Dahalac at present, matters were widely different in former times. The pearl fishery flourished greatly here under the Ptolemies; and even long after, in the time of the caliphs, it produced a great revenue, and till the sovereigns of Cairo, of the present miserable race of slaves, began to withdraw themselves from their dependency on the port, Dahalac was the principal island that furnished the pearl fishers or divers. It was, indeed, the chief port for the fishery on the southern part of the Red Sea, as Suakem was on the north; and the baisha of Mafuah passed part of every summer here, to avoid the heat at his place of residence on the continent.

The fishery extended from Dahalac and its islands nearly to lat. 20°. The inhabited islands furnished each a bark and so many divers, and they were paid in wheat, flour, &c., such a portion to each bark for their use, and so much to leave with their family for their subsistence; so that a few months employment furnished them with every thing necessary for the rest of the year. The fishery was rented in later times to the baisha of Suakem; but there was a place between Suakem and the supposed supposed river Frat, in lat. 21° 28' north, called Gun- gunnab, which was referred to the grand signior in par- ticular, and a special officer was appointed to receive the pearls on the spot and send them to Constantinople. The pearls found there were of the largest size, and in- ferior to none in water or roundness. Tradition says, that this was exclusively the property of the Pharaohs; by which is meant, in Arabian manuscripts, the old kings of Egypt before Mahomet.

In the same extent, between Dahalac and Suakem, was another very valuable fishery, that of tortoises, from which the finest shells of that kind were produced, and a great trade was carried on with the East Indies (Chi- na especially) at little expense, and with very consider- able profits. But the immense treasures in the bottom of the Red Sea have now been abandoned for near 200 years, though they never were richer in all probability than at present. No nation can now turn them to any profit but the English East India Company, more in- tent on multiplying the number of their enemies, and weakening themselves by spreading their inconceivable force over new conquests, than creating additional pro- fit by engaging in new articles of commerce. A settle- ment upon the river Frat, which never yet has belonged to any but wandering Arabs, would open them a market both for coarse and fine goods from the south- ern frontiers of Morocco, to Congo and Angola, and set the commerce of pearls and tortoise shell on foot again. All this section of the gulf from Suez, as we are told, is in their charter, and twenty ships might be employed on the Red Sea without any violation of ter- ritorial claims. The myrrh, the frankincense, some cinnamon, and variety of drugs, are all in the posses- sion of the weak king of Adel; an usurper, tyrant, and Pagan, without protection, and willing to trade with any superior power that only would secure him a miser- able livelihood.

There are neither horses, dogs, sheep, cows, nor any fort of quadrupeds, but goats, asses, a few half-starved camels, and antelopes, at Dahalac, which last are very numerous. The inhabitants have no knowledge of fire- arms, and there are no dogs nor beasts of prey in the island to kill them; they catch indeed some few of them in traps.

The language at Dahalac is that of the shepherds, though Arabic, too, is spoken by most of them. Our author states the latitude of Dahalac to lie between 15° 27' 30", and 15° 54' 30" north.