being anchored at the foot
of the mountain. Aden is an excellent city, and the chief place in all
Arabia Felix, of which it is the principal mart, to which merchants
resort from India, Ethiopia, Persia, and the Red Sea; but owing to the
intolerable heat during the day, the whole business of buying and
selling takes place at night, beginning two hours after sunset. As soon
as our brigantines came to anchor in the haven, the customers and
searchers came off, demanding what we were, whence we came, what
commodities we had on board, and how many men were in each vessel? After
being satisfied on these heads they took away our mast, sails, and other
tackle, that we might not depart without paying the customs.

The day after our arrival at Aden, the Mahometans took me prisoner, and
put shackles on my legs in consequence of an _idolater_ calling after me
that I was a Christian dog[49]. Upon this the Mahometans laid hold of
me, and carried me before the lieutenant of the sultan, who assembled
his council, to consult with them if I should be put to death as a
Christian spy. The sultan happened to be absent from the city, and as
the lieutenant had not hitherto adjudged any one to death, he did not
think fit to give sentence against me till my case were reported to the
sultan. By this means I escaped the present danger, and remained in
prison 55 days, with an iron of eighteen pounds weight fastened to my
legs. On the second day of my confinement, many Mahometans went in great
rage to the lieutenant to demand that I should be put to death as a
Portuguese spy. Only a few days before, these men had difficultly
escaped from the hands of the Portuguese by swimming, with the loss of
their foists and barks, and therefore greatly desired to be revenged of
the Christians, outrageously affirming that I was a Portuguese and a
spy. But God assisted me, for the master of the prison made fast its
gates, that these outrageous men might not offer me violence. At the end
of fifty-five days, the sultan sent for me into his presence; so I was
placed on the back of a camel with my shackles, and at the end of eight
days journey I was brought to the city of _Rhada_, where the sultan then
resided, and where he had assembled an army of 30,000 men to make war
upon the sultan of _Sanaa_, a fair and populous city about three days
journey from _Rhada_, situated partly on the slope of a hill and partly
in a plain. When I was brought before the sultan, he asked