The 5th of February we at last entered the Gulf of Aden, a perfect funnel introduced into the neck of Bab-el-mandeb, through which the Indian waters entered the Red Sea.
The Arabian Edrisi portrays it under the name of the Gulf of Colzoum, and relates that vessels perished there in great numbers on the sandbanks and that no one would risk sailing in the night.
It takes us beneath Suez and opens into the Gulf of Pelusium."
It is separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California, sometimes called the Vermilion Sea; into this gulf empties the Colorado of the West, the Seeds-ke-dee, or Green River, as it is also sometimes called.
It is situated in a beautiful valley, about half way between the Gulf of California and the broad ocean, the peninsula being here about sixty miles wide.
From this lofty eminence, a vast and magnificent prospect unfolds itself; the great Gulf of California, with the dark blue sea beyond, studded with islands; and in another direction, the immense lava plain of San Gabriel.
that vast "Sea of Humors," barely softened by some drops of the waters from the "
Gulf of Dew!" Clouds, rain, storms, and humors-- does the life of man contain aught but these?
(the most eastern part of Africa) that the
Gulf of Arabia begins, which at Babelmandel loses its name, and is called the Red Sea.
We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence to the coast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief of the supercargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where, if he missed his business outward-bound, he was to go out to China, and return to the coast as he came home.
I was now alone in a most remote part of the world, for I was near three thousand leagues by sea farther off from England than I was at my island; only, it is true, I might travel here by land over the Great Mogul's country to Surat, might go from thence to Bassora by sea, up the Gulf of Persia, and take the way of the caravans, over the desert of Arabia, to Aleppo and Scanderoon; from thence by sea again to Italy, and so overland into France.
It was for the Mediterranean sailors that fair-haired sirens sang among the black rocks seething in white foam and mysterious voices spoke in the darkness above the moving wave - voices menacing, seductive, or prophetic, like that voice heard at the beginning of the Christian era by the master of an African vessel in the
Gulf of Syrta, whose calm nights are full of strange murmurs and flitting shadows.
We had advanced a little way--a very little way--into the larger space of the
Gulf of Siam.