In revenge for the duplicity and delay of the sheikh of Suakem, De Gama marched into the interior with 1000 men, accompanied by his brother Don Christopher, and defeated the sheikh with great slaughter. He then plundered the city of Suakem, where many of the private men got booty to the value of four or five thousand ducats, and then burnt it to the ground. From thence, he went towards Suez with only sixteen, Katurs or Malabar barges, and sent back the fleet to Massua under the command of Lionel de Lima. On this occasion, there was a great dispute, as every one strove to go on this expedition; whence the bay got the name of Angra de los Aggraviadas, or bay of the offended. Many gentlemen went in the barges as private soldiers or volunteers, willing to go in any capacity if only they were admitted. The number of men on this fruitless expedition was 250. They plundered and burnt Cossier or Al Kossir; whence crossing to Tor or Al Tur, they took some vessels belonging to the enemy. At first the Turks opposed their landing; but some of them being slain, the rest abandoned the city, in which nothing was found of value. De Gama did not burn this town, in reverence for the relics of St Catharine and the monastery and religious men there, which he visited at their request. He was the first European commander who had taken that city, where he knighted several of his followers, an honour much prized by those who received it, and which was envied; afterwards even by the emperor Charles V. From thence De Gama proceeded to Suez; and after many brave but fruitless attempts to sound the harbour, De Gama determined to go himself in open day to view the gallies. He accordingly landed and saw the enemies but endeavouring to force his way towards them, the enemies shot poured thick from the town, and 2000 Turkish horse broke out from an ambush, by which the Portuguese were reduced to great straits. Though the Portuguese cannon slew a good many of the enemy, their numbers were so much superior that the Portuguese were obliged to retreat with some loss, and much grieved that the object of their expedition was frustrated. Thus far we have deemed necessary to premise, relative to the design and success of the expedition, from De Faria and other authors; because the journal of Don Juan de Castro is almost entirely confined to observations respecting the places visited in the voyage, and gives little or no information respecting these particulars.

The rutter or journal must be allowed to be very curious.-The author, like an exact and diligent navigator, has not only given the course and distance from one place to another, with the latitudes of the principal ports and head-lands; but has noticed the minute windings of the coast, and the situations of islands, with observations on the tides, currents, shoals, sand-banks, and other particulars respecting the Red Sea. Yet, far from confining himself to mere nautical remarks, he has given an account of all the places at which he touched, together with accounts of the countries and the inhabitants, so far as he was able to collect from his own observations, or the accounts of such as he was able to converse with, particularly the natives. Don John hath gone farther yet, and has even attempted to draw a parallel between the ancient and modern geography of this sea. If in all points of this last he may not have succeeded, the great difficulty of the task, owing to the obscurity of the subject, is to be considered: most of the ancient places having been destroyed; the ancient names of others long since out of use and forgotten; and that very little is known of these coasts by Europeans, even at this day. For these reasons, as the conjectures of the author are often erroneous respecting the ancient geography, and as at best they are very uncertain, we shall for the most part insert them by way of notes, with our own remarks respecting them255. Whether the altitudes have been taken by Don Juan with that precision which geography requires, may also be in some measure questioned; since we find there was a crack in the instrument employed, the size of which is not mentioned; neither were all the observations repeated. Even if they had been, it is well known that the observations of those times were by no means so accurate as those made of late years. After all, however, the observations in this journal appear to have been made with a good deal of care, and they cannot fail to be of great service to geography.

It is alone by the observations contained in this journal that geographers are able to determine the extent of the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea from north to south256, as well as the situation of its principal ports on the west side. The latitude of the straits was verified by the observations of Don Juans pilot. But as most maps and charts give the situation of Suez, at the northern end of the Red Sea, very different from that marked in this journal, which is 29° 45' N. it may not be amiss to examine this point.

By several very accurate observations made in 1694, M. Chazelles of the Royal Academy of Paris found the latitude of Cairo to be 80° 2' 20". The difference of latitude therefore between Cairo and Suez, will be 17 minutes; which we conceive cannot be very far from the truth, if not quite exact, since the map published by Dr Pocock makes the difference about 20 minutes. It is true that in Sicards map of Egypt, and in a late257 French chart of the eastern ocean, Suez is placed only two or three minutes to the southward of Cairo. But as these authors had no new observations made at Suez to go by, and seem to have been unacquainted with those of Don Juan de Castro, their authority can weigh very little against an express observation, and against Dr Pococks map, which, among other helps, was constructed upon one made by the natives. Besides this, in his later maps De L'isle regulates the situation of Suez according to the latitude found by Don Juan. Indeed Sicard places Suez nearly in that parallel, but egregiously mistakes the latitude of Cairo, so that he seems to have given it that position more by chance than design.

This may suffice to support the credit of the observations of latitude as made by Don Juan, till new and better ones can be made, which we are not to expect in haste, as European ships now seldom sail any farther into the Red Sea than Mokha or Zabid, for which reason this journal is the more to be prized. In other respects it is full of variety; and if some parts of it be dry and unamusing, these make amends by their usefulness to geographers and navigators, while other parts are calculated to instruct and give pleasure on other accounts.-Astley.

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So far the foregoing introduction is taken from Astleys collection. In our edition of the Journal of Don Juan de Castro, we have used the earliest known copy as given by Purchas, Vol. II. p. 1122-1148, under the title of A Rutter or Journal of Don John of Castro, of the Voyage which the Portugals made from India to Zoes, &c. and here abbreviated. The original of which is reported to have been bought by Sir Walter Raleigh, at sixtie pounds, and by him caused to be done into English out of the Portugal.

Of this Journal Purchas gives the following account in a marginal note, which is inserted in his own words: "This voyage being occasioned by sending the Patriarch Bermudez to Ethiopia, and relating how that state decayed, invaded by the Moores, and embroiled with civil discontents, contayning also a more full intelligence of the Red Sea, than any other Rutter which I have seene, I have here added; and next to it, Bermudez own report, translated, it seemeth, by the same hand (not the most refined in his English phrase, which yet I durst not be too busie with, wanting the original) and reduced to our method; here and there amending, the English, which yet in part was done, as I thinke, and many marginall notes added, by Sir Walter Raleigh himselfe."-In the present edition, while we have adhered closely to that of Purchas, with the assistance of that in Astleys Collection, we have endeavoured, little more busy than Purchas, to reduce the language to a more intelligible modern standard; and have divided it into Sections, in imitation of the editor of Astleys Collection of Voyages and Travels. On purpose to carry on the series of events, we have inserted as a necessary introduction, an account of the Portuguese Transactions in India, from the discontinuance of the siege of Diu and retreat of Solyman Pacha in November 1538, to the commencement of the expedition of Don Stefano de Gama to the Red Sea in December 1540, when the journal of Don Juan de Castro begins; which first section of this chapter is taken from the Portuguese Asia of De Faria. –E.