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Most likely there never was a Saracenic Empire. But there certainly was a time when Arabians controlled not only the Arabian peninsula, but also Syria and the fertile plains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well; and that great region became known as the "Land of the Saracens." From Damascus to Bagdad, and from the Bab-el-Mandeb to the Gulf of Oman, the Moslem was all-powerful.
The Cigno stood away for the coast, but, as the day wore, it was palpable that she did not mean to part company with the yacht until the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb were passed. About four o'clock the wind dropped and the engines were called on. With the night the wind rose again but veered to the south. The Cigno's lights were clearly visible at about three miles' distance.
Between one and four it was too hot to sleep, so that there wasn't much restful repose on the ship until we got out of the Red Sea. Down at the end of the Red Sea are the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. In the middle of the straits is the island of Perim, a sun-baked, bare and uninviting chunk of land that has great strategic value and little else.
Vincent Sodrez had arrived at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, when a fearful tempest occurred, in which his ship split upon the rocks, and he and his brother perished. The survivors regarded this event as a judgment of Providence for their bad conduct, and they made haste, with all sails set to return to Cochin.
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.
Wells also have been sunk, and the sea-water has been distilled to supply that most necessary fluid. Instead of at once going north, we stood up the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, to the island of Perim, when we came to anchor in a remarkably fine harbour, capable of accommodating a numerous fleet. It had lately been occupied by the British, who were then building a lighthouse on it.
Many geologists believe that the Jordan- Akabah trough, the long narrow basin of the Red Sea, and the chain of down-faulted valleys which in Africa extends from the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb as far south as Lake Nyassa valleys which contain more than thirty lakes belong to a single system of dislocation.
The position of Ophir has been much disputed, but the balance of argument is in favour of the theory which places it in Arabia, on the south-eastern coast, a little outside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
To pass the island of Perim we sailed through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, or 'Gate of Tears, thus called on account of the numerous wrecks which took place there in former years. Once through the straits, we were fairly in the Red Sea. The colour of the Red Sea is certainly the bluest of ultramarines.
Its eastern border is very vague, but may be said to coincide approximately with the 45th parallel of longitude. Southward the limit has been clearly defined by the Anglo-Turkish Boundary Commission of 1902-5 inland from the Bana valley, about a hundred map-miles north of Aden, to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
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