On the 15th we came to an anchor at El Har[181], where we saw high, craggy, and broken mountains, called the Mountains of Ruddua. These abound with springs of water; all sort of Arabian and African fruits grow here in perfection, and every kind of vegetable that they will take the pains to cultivate. It is the paradise of the people of Yambo; those of any substance have country houses there; but, strange to tell, they stay there but for a short time, and prefer the bare, dry, and burning sands about Yambo, to one of the finest climates, and most verdant pleasant countries, that exists in the world. The people of the place have told me, that water freezes there in winter, and that there are some of the inhabitants who have red hair, and blue eyes, a thing scarcely ever seen but in the coldest mountains in the East.
The 16th, about ten o’clock, we passed a mosque, or Shekh’s tomb on the main land, on our left hand, called Kubbet Yambo, and before eleven we anchored in the mouth of the port in deep water. Yambo, corruptly called Imbo, is an ancient city, now dwindled to a paultry village. Ptolemy calls it Iambia Vicus, or the village Yambia; a proof it was of no great importance in his time. But after the conquest of Egypt under Sultan Selim, it became a valuable station, for supplying their conquests in Arabia, with warlike stores, from Suez, and for the importation of wheat from Egypt to their garrisons, and the holy places of Mecca and Medina. On this account, a large castle was built there by Sinan Basha; for the ancient Yambo of Ptolemy is not that which is called so at this day. It is six miles farther south; and is called Yambo el Nachel, or, ‘Yambo among the palm-trees,’ a great quantity of ground being there covered with this sort of plantation.
Yambo, in the language of the country, signifies a fountain or spring, a very copious one of excellent water being found there among the date trees, and it is one of the stations of the Emir Hadje in going to, and coming from Mecca. The advantage of the port, however, which the other has not, and the protection of the castle, have carried trading vessels to the modern Yambo, where there is no water, but what is brought from pools dug on purpose to receive the rain when it falls.