Excerpt from Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, Vol. 3 of 5
The island itself is very small, scarce three quarters of a mile in length, and about half that in breadth, one-third occupied by houses, one by cisterns to receive the rain-water, and the last is reserved for burying the dead.
Masuah, as we have already observed, was one of those towns on the west of the Red Sea that followed the conquest of Arabia Felix by Sinan Baiha, under Selim emperor of Constantinople. At that time it was a place of great commerce, possessing a share of the Indian trade in common with the other ports of the Red Sea near the mouth of the Indian Ocean. It had a considerable quantity of exports brought to it from a great tract of mountainous country behind it, in all ages very unhospitable, and almost inaccessible to strangers. Gold and ivory, elephants and buffaloes hides, and, above all, slaves, of much greater value, as being more sought after for their personal qualities than any other sort, who had the misfortune to be reduced to that condition, made the principal articles of exportation from this port. Pearls, considerable for size, water, or colour, were found all along its coast. The great convenience of commodious riding for vessels, joined to these valuable articles of trade, had overcome the inconvenience of want of water, the principal necessary of life, to which it had been subjected from its creation.
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