Just before seven o'clock Paul and Bob saw two large bodies of water ahead of them, one stretching to the right and the other to the left. The chart told them that the northern body was the Red Sea and the southern one the Gulf of Aden, which opens into the Indian Ocean. Between these bodies lay a narrow belt of water, flanked on the western or African side by rocky, wooded hills, and on the eastern side by low, sandy shores dotted with palms.  This was the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the country beyond was Persia.