"That was certainly an omission, for Dahalac is a large
island, sixty miles in circumference. It contains goats which have
long silky hair, and furnishes gum-lac, the produce of a particular
kind of shrub. To this island vessels repair for fresh water, which,
however, is very bad, being kept in 370 dirty cisterns!"
MR. BARRAUD. "This district is especially interesting to Christians,
for here are situated the mounts celebrated in Scripture. In the
centre of Armenia you may observe Mount Ararat, a detached elevation
with two summits; the highest covered with perpetual snow. On this
mountain rested the Ark, when God sent his vengeance over all the
earth, and destroyed every living thing. Mount Lebanon is in Syria;
and not far distant stands Mount Sinai, an enormous mass of granite
rocks, with a Greek convent at its base, called the convent of St.
Catharine: here was the law delivered to Moses, inscribed on two
tables of stone by the Most High God."
MR. WILTON. "The whole coast of Oman, in South Arabia, which on the
north is washed by the waters of the Persian Gulf, and on the south
by the Sea of Oman, abounds with fish; and, as the natives have but
few canoes, they generally substitute a single inflated skin, or
sometimes two, across which they place a flat board. On this
contrivance the fisherman seats himself, and either casts his small
hand-net, or plays his hook and line. Some capital sport must arise
occasionally, when the sharks, which are here very numerous and
large, gorge the bait; for, whenever this occurs, unless the angler
cuts his line, (and that, as the shark is more valued by them than
any other fish, he is often unwilling to do,) nothing can prevent
his rude machine from following their track; and the fisherman is
sometimes, in consequence, carried out a great distance to sea.
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