Page 295 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

276 COAST OF ARABIA. [cm.

fixed at a high rate, they are crowded to ex­
cess, from the impossibility of procuring a
passage by any other means. Leaving Mokha
for so long a voyage, a small brig of two

hundred tons had two hundred and seventy
persons stowed on board, exclusive of her
crew.
It is a well-authenticated fact, and one
which is not generally known, that a number
of young females are brought annually to
Mecca from those islands for sale. They are
disposed of at from one hundred and fifty to
three hundred dollars each, and are much
esteemed both by natives and Turks, though
the latter are more generally the purchasers.

Independently of the trade carried on in
square-rigged vessels, amounting, this year,
to twenty-six in number (about ten thousand
tons), there is also a considerable branch con­
ducted in large bagalas, which run during the
fine-weather months between India and the
ports in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
The returns made for these imports to the
various ports are mostly in cash, with a few

pearls of indifferent quality, some chests of
red beads, old copper ware, &c. All these