A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 8 | Page 6

certain shepherds to drive them along with us. We also bought tents to lie in, and to put our goods under; and in this caravan of ours there were four thousand camels laden with spices and other rich goods. These camels can subsist very well for two or three days without water, feeding on thistles, wormwood, magdalene, and other coarse weeds they find by the way. The government of the caravans, the deciding of all quarrels that occur, and the apportionment of all duties to be paid, are committed to the care of some one rich and experienced merchant in the company, whose honour and honesty can best be confided in. We spent forty days in our journey from Bagdat to Aleppo, travelling at the rate of from twenty to twenty-four miles a-day, resting ourselves commonly from two in the afternoon till three next morning, at which time we usually began our journey.
Eight days journey from Bagdat, near to a town called Heit, where we cross the Euphrates in boats, and about three miles from that place, there is a valley in which are many mouths, or holes, continually throwing out, in great abundance, a black kind of substance like tar, which serves all this country for paying their boats and barks. Every one of these springs makes a noise like a smith's forge, continually puffing and blowing; and the noise is so loud, that it may be heard a mile off. This vale swalloweth up all heavy things that are thrown into it. The people of the country call it _Bab-el-gehenam_, or the gate of hell. In passing through these deserts we saw certain wild beasts, such as asses, all white, roebucks, leopards, foxes, and many hares, a considerable number of which last we chaced and killed. Aborise, the king of the wandering Arabs in these deserts, receives a duty of 40 shillings value for every loaded camel, which he sends his officers to receive from the caravans; and, in consideration of this, he engages to convoy the caravans in safety, if need be, and to defend them against the prowling thieves.
I and my companion, William Shales, came to Aleppo on the 11th June, 1584, being joyfully welcomed at twenty miles distance by Mr William Barret, our consul, accompanied by his people and janisaries. He fell sick immediately after, and departed this life in eight days illness, having nominated, before he died, Mr Anthony Bate to succeed him as consul for the English nation, who laudably executed the office for three years. In the mean time, I made two other journeys to Bagdat and Basora, returning in the same manner through the desert. Being afterwards desirous to see other parts of the country, I went from Aleppo to Antioch, which is 60 miles, and from thence to Tripoli, where, going on board a small vessel, I arrived at Joppa, and travelled by land to Rama, Lycia, Gaza, Jerusalem, Bethlem, the river Jordan, and the sea of Sodom, and returned to Joppa, from whence I went back to Tripoli; but as many others have published large discourses of these places, I think it unnecessary to write of them here. Within a few days after my return to Tripoli, I embarked in the Hercules of London, on the 22d December, 1587, and arrived safe, by the blessing of God, in the Thames, with divers other English merchants, on the 26th March, 1588; our ship being the richest in merchant goods that ever was known to arrive in this realm.
SECTION V.
_Of the Monsoons, or Periodical Winds, with which Ships depart from Place to Place in India. By William Barret._[5]
It is to be noted, that the city of Goa is the principal place of all the oriental India, and that the winter begins there on the 15th of May, with very great rain, and so continues till the 1st of August; during which time no ship can pass the bar of Goa, as, by these continual rains, all the sands join together hear a mountain called Oghane, and run into the shoals of the bar and port of Goa, having no other issue, and remain there, so that the port is shut up till the 1st of August; but it opens again on the 10th of August, as the rains are then ceased, and the sea thus scours away the sand.
[Footnote 5: Hakluyt, II. 413.
It appears, from the journal of John Eldred, in the preceding section, that William Barret was English consul at Aleppo, and died in 1584.
In the immediately preceding article in Hakluyt, vol. II. p. 406, et seq., is a curious account of the money weights and measures of Bagdat, Basora, Ormus, Goa, Cochin, and Malacca, which we wished to have inserted, but found no sufficient data by which to institute