ANONYMI [ARRIANI UT FERTUR] PERIPLUS MARIS ERYTHRÆI.

1. The first of the important roadsteads established on the Red Sea, and the first also of the great trading marts upon its coast, is the port of Myos-hormos in Egypt. Beyond it at a distance of 1800 stadia is Berenikê, which is to your right if you approach it by sea. These roadsteads are both situate at the furthest end of Egypt, and are bays of the Red Sea.

Commentary.

(1) Myos Hormos.—Its situation is determined by the cluster of islands now called Jifâtîn [lat. 27° 12´ N., long. 33° 55´ E.] of which the three largest lie opposite an indenture of the coast of Egypt on the curve of which its harbour was situated [near Ras Abu Somer, a little north of Satâjah Island]. It was founded by Ptolemy Philadelphos B. C. 274, who selected it as the principal port of the Egyptian trade with India in preference to Arsinoê,[16] N. N. E. of Suez, on account of the difficulty and tediousness of the navigation down the Heroöpolite Gulf. The vessels bound for Africa and the south of Arabia left its harbour about the time of the autumnal equinox, when the North West wind which then prevailed carried them quickly down the Gulf. Those bound for the Malabar Coast or Ceylon left in July, and if they cleared the Red Sea before the 1st of September, they had the monsoon to assist their passage across the ocean. Myos Hormos was distant from Koptos [lat. 26° N.], the station on the Nile through which it communicated with Alexandria, a journey of seven or eight days along a road opened through the desert by Philadelphos. The name Myos Hormos is of Greek origin, and may signify either the Harbour of the Mouse, or, more probably, of the Mussel, since the pearl mussel abounded in its neighbourhood. Agatharkhidês calls it Aphroditēs Hormos, and Pliny Veneris Portus. [Veneris Portus however was probably at Sherm Sheikh, lat. 24° 36´ N. Off the coast is Wade Jemâl Island, lat. 24° 39´ N., long. 35° 8´ E., called Iambe by Pliny, and perhaps the Aphroditês Island of Ptolemy IV. v. 77.] Referring to this name Vincent says: “Here if the reader will advert to Aphroditê, the Greek title of Venus, as springing from the foam of the ocean, it will immediately appear that the Greeks were translating here, for the native term to this day is Suffange-el-Bahri, ‘sponge of the sea’; and the vulgar error of the sponge being the foam of the sea, will immediately account for Aphroditê.”

The rival of Myos-Hormos was Berenikê, a city built by Ptolemy Philadelphos, who so named it in honour of his mother, who was the daughter of Ptolemy Lagos and Antigonê. It was in the same parallel with Syênê and therefore not far from the Tropic [lat. 23° 55´ N.]. It stood nearly at the bottom of Foul Bay (ἐν βάθει τοῦ Ἀκαθάρτου so Κὀλπου), called from the coast being foul with shoals and breakers, and not from the impurity of its water, as its Latin name, Sinus Immundus, would lead us to suppose. Its ruins are still perceptible even to the arrangement of the streets, and in the centre is a small Egyptian temple adorned with hieroglyphics and bas-reliefs of Greek workmanship. Opposite to the town is a very fine natural harbour, the entrance of which has been deep enough for small vessels, though the bar is now impassable at low water. Its prosperity under the Ptolemies and afterwards under the Romans was owing to its safe anchorage and its being, like Myos-Hormos, the terminus of a great road from Koptos along which the traffic of Alexandria with Ethiopia, Arabia, and India passed to and fro. Its distance from Koptos was 258 Roman miles or 11 days’ journey. The distance between Myos-Hormos and Berenikê is given in the Periplûs at 225 miles, but this is considerably above the mark. The difficulty of the navigation may probably have made the distance seem greater than it was in reality.

2. The country which adjoins them on the right below Berenîkê is Barbaria. Here the sea-board is peopled by the Ikhthyophagoi, who live in scattered huts built in the narrow gorges of the hills, and further inland are the Berbers, and beyond them the Agriophagoi and Moskhophagoi, tribes under regular government by kings. Beyond these again, and still further inland towards the west [is situated the metropolis called Meroê].

(2) Adjoining Berenikê was Barbaria (ἡ Βαρβαρικὴ χώρα)—the land about Ras Abû Fatima [lat. 22° 26´ N.—Ptol. IV. vii. 28]. The reading of the MS. is ἡ Τισηβαρικὴ which Müller rejects because the name nowhere occurs in any work, and because if Barbaria is not mentioned here, our author could not afterwards (Section 5) say ἡ ἄλλη Βαρβαρία. The Agriophagoi who lived in the interior are mentioned by Pliny (vi. 35), who says that they lived principally on the flesh of panthers and lions. Vincent writes as if instead of Αγριοφάγων the reading should be Ακριδοφάγων locust-eaters, who are mentioned by Agatharkhidês in his De Mari Erythraeo, Section 58. Another inland tribe is mentioned in connection with them—the Moskhophagoi, who may be identified with the Rizophagoi or Spermatophagoi of the same writer, who were so named because they lived on roots of the tender suckers and buds of trees, called in Greek μόσχοι. This being a term applied also to the young of animals, Vincent was led to think that this tribe fed on the brinde or flesh cut out of the living animal as described by Bruce.

3. Below the Moskhophagoi, near the sea, lies a little trading town distant from Berenîkê about 4000 stadia, called Ptolemaïs Thêrôn, from which, in the days of the Ptolemies, the hunters employed by them used to go up into the interior to catch elephants. In this mart is procured the true (or marine) tortoise-shell, and the land kind also, which, however, is scarce, of a white colour, and smaller size. A little ivory is also sometimes obtainable, resembling that of Adouli. This place has no port, and is approachable only by boats.

(3) To the south of the Moskhophagoi lies Ptolemaïs Thêrôn, or, as it is called by Pliny, Ptolemaïs Epitheras. [On Er-rih island, lat. 18° 9´ N., long 38° 27´ E., are the ruins of an ancient town—probably Ptolemaïs Therôn—Müller however places Suche here.—Ptol. I. viii. 1.; IV. vii. 7; VIII. xvi. 10]. It was originally an Ethiopian village, but was extended and fortified by Ptolemy Philadelphos, who made it the depôt of the elephant trade, for which its situation on the skirts of the great Nubian forest, where these animals abounded, rendered it peculiarly suitable. The Egyptians before this had imported their elephants from Asia, but as the supply was precarious, and the cost of importation very great, Philadelphos made the most tempting offers to the Ethiopian elephant-hunters (Elephantophagoi) to induce them to abstain from eating the animal, or to reserve at least a portion of them for the royal stables. They rejected however all his solicitations, declaring that even for all Egypt they would not forego the luxury of their repast. The king resolved thereupon to procure his supplies by employing hunters of his own.

4. Leaving Ptolemaïs Thêrôn we are conducted, at the distance of about 3000 stadia, to Adouli, a regular and established port of trade situated on a deep bay the direction of which is due south. Facing this, at a distance seaward of about 200 stadia from the inmost recess of the bay, lies an island called Oreinê (or ‘the mountainous’), which runs on either side parallel with the mainland. Ships, that come to trade with Adouli, now-a-days anchor here, to avoid being attacked from the shore; for in former times when they used to anchor at the very head of the bay, beside an island called Diodôros, which was so close to land that the sea was fordable, the neighbouring barbarians, taking advantage of this, would run across to attack the ships at their moorings. At the distance of 20 stadia from the sea, opposite Oreinê, is the village of Adouli, which is not of any great size, and inland from this a three days’ journey is a city, Kolöê, the first market where ivory can be procured. From Kolöê it takes a journey of five days to reach the metropolis of the people called the Auxumitae, whereto is brought, through the province called Kyêneion, all the ivory obtained on the other side of the Nile, before it is sent on to Adouli. The whole mass, I may say, of the elephants and rhinoceroses which are killed to supply the trade frequent the uplands of the interior, though at rare times they are seen near the coast, even in the neighbourhood of Adouli. Besides the islands already mentioned, a cluster consisting of many small ones lies out in the sea to the right of this port. They bear the name of Alalaiou, and yield the tortoises with which the Ikhthyophagoi supply the market.

(4) Beyond Ptolemaïs Thêrôn occurs Adoulê, at a distance, according to the Periplûs, of 3000 stadia—a somewhat excessive estimate. The place is called also Adoulei and more commonly Adoulis by ancient writers (Ptol. IV. vii. 8; VIII. xvi. 11). It is represented by the modern Thulla or Zula [pronounced Azule,—lat. 15° 12´-15° 15´ N., long. 39° 36´ E.].—To the West of this, according to Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt, there are to be found the remains of an ancient city. It was situated on the Adoulikos Kolpos (Ptol. I. xv. 11.; IV. vii. 8), now called Annesley Bay, the best entrance into Abyssinia. It was erroneously placed by D’Anville at Dokhnau or Harkiko, close to Musawwâ [lat. 15° 35´ N.] There is much probability in the supposition that it was founded by a party of those Egyptians who, as we learn from Herodotos (II. 30), to the number of 240,000 fled from their country in the days of Psammêtikḥos (B. C. 671-617) and went to as great a distance beyond Meroë, the capital of Ethiopia, as Meroë is beyond Elephantinê. This is the account which Pliny (VI. 3-4) gives of its foundation, adding that it was the greatest emporium of the Troglodytes, and distant from Ptolemaïs a five days’ voyage, which by the ordinary reckoning is 2,500 stadia. It was an emporium for rhinoceros’ hides, ivory and tortoise-shell. It had not only a large sea-borne traffic, but was also a caravan station for the traffic of the interior of Africa. Under the Romans it was the haven of Auxumê (Ptol. IV. vii. 25,—written also Auxumis, Axumis), now Axum, the capital of the kingdom of Tigre in Abyssinia. Auxumê was the chief centre of the trade with the interior of Africa in gold-dust, ivory, leather, hides and aromatics. It was rising to great prosperity and power about the time the Periplûs was written, which is the earliest work extant in which it is mentioned. It was probably founded by the Egyptian exiles already referred to. Its remaining monuments are perfectly Egyptian and not pastoral, Troglodytik, Greek, or Arabian in their character. Its name at the same time retains traces of the term Asmak, by which, as we learn from Herodotos, those exiles were designated, and Heeren considers it to have been one of the numerous priest-colonies which were sent out from Meroë.

At Adouli was a celebrated monument, a throne of white marble with a slab of basanite stone behind it, both covered with Greek characters, which in the sixth century of our era were copied by Kosmas Indikopleustês. The passage in Kosmos relating to this begins thus: “Adulê is a city of Ethiopia and the port of communication with Axiômis, and the whole nation of which that city is the capital. In this port we carry on our trade from Alexandria and the Elanitik Gulf. The town itself is about a mile from the shore, and as you enter it on the Western side which leads from Axiômis, there is still remaining a chair or throne which appertained to one of the Ptolemys who had subjected this country to his authority.” The first portion of the inscription records that Ptolemy Euergetês (247-222 B.C.) received from the Troglodyte Arabs and Ethiopians certain elephants which his father, the second king of the Makedonian dynasty, and himself had taken in hunting in the region of Adulê and trained to war in their own kingdom. The second portion of the inscription commemorates the conquests of an anonymous Ethiopian king in Arabia and Ethiopia as far as the frontier of Egypt. Adouli, it is known for certain, received its name from a tribe so designated which formed a part of the Danakil shepherds who are still found in the neighbourhood of Annesley Bay, in the island of Diset [lat. 15° 28´, long. 30° 45´, the Diodôros perhaps of the Periplûs] opposite which is the town or station of Masawâ (anc. Saba) [lat. 15° 37´ N., long. 39° 28´ E.], and also in the archipelago of Dhalak, called in the Periplûs, the islands of Alalaiou. The merchants of Egypt, we learn from the work, first traded at Masawwâ but afterwards removed to Oreinê for security. This is an islet in the south of the Bay of Masawwâ, lying 20 miles from the coast; it is a rock as its name imports, and is of considerable elevation.

Aduli being the best entrance into Abyssinia, came prominently into notice during the late Abyssinian war. Beke thus speaks of it, “In our recent visit to Abyssinia I saw quite enough to confirm the opinion I have so long entertained, that when the ancient Greeks founded Adule or Adulis at the mouth of the river Hadâs, now only a river bed except during the rains, though a short way above there is rain all the year round, they knew that they possessed one of the keys of Abyssinia.”

5. Below Adouli, about 800 stadia, occurs another very deep bay, at the entrance of which on the right are vast accumulations of sand, wherein is found deeply embedded the Opsian stone, which is not obtainable anywhere else. The king of all this country, from the Moskhophagoi to the other end of Barbaria, is Zôskalês, a man at once of penurious habits and of a grasping disposition, but otherwise honourable in his dealings and instructed in the Greek language.

(5) At a distance of about 100 miles beyond Adouli the coast is indented by another bay now known as Hanfelah bay [near Râs Hanfelah in lat. 14° 44´, long. 40° 49´ E.] about 100 miles from Annesley Bay and opposite an island called Daramsas or Hanfelah. It has wells of good water and a small lake of fresh water after the rains; the coast is inhabited by the Dummoeta, a tribe of the Danakil. This is the locality where, and where only, the Opsian or Obsidian stone was to be found. Pliny calls it an unknown bay, because traders making for the ports of Arabia passed it by without deviating from their course to enter it. He was aware, as well as our author, that it contained the Opsian stone, of which he gives an account, already produced in the introduction.

6. These articles which these places import are the following:—

Ἱμάτια βαρβαρικα, ἄγναφα τὰ ἐν Ἀιγύπτω γινόμενα—Cloth undressed, of Egyptian manufacture, for the Barbarian market.

Στολὰι Ἀρσινοητικὰι—Robes manufactured at Arsinoê.

Ἀβόλλαι νόθοι χρωμάτιναι—Cloaks, made of a poor cloth imitating a better quality, and dyed.

Λέντια—Linens.

Δικρόσσια—Striped cloths and fringed. Mantles with a double fringe.

Λιθίας ὑαλῆς πλείονα γένη καὶ ἄλλης μορρίνης, τῆς γινομένης έν Διοσπόλει—Many sorts of glass or crystal, and of that other transparent stone called Myrrhina, made at Diospolis.

Ὀρείχαλκος—Yellow copper, for ornaments and cut into pieces to pass for money.

Μελίεφθα χαλκᾶ—Copper fused with honey: for culinary vessels and cutting into bracelets and anklets worn by certain classes of women.

Σίδηρος—Iron. Consumed in making spearheads for hunting the elephant and other animals and in making weapons of war.

Πελύκια—Hatchets.

Σκέπαρνα—Adzes.

Μάχαιραι—Swords.

Ποτήρια χαλκᾶ στρογγύλα μεγάλα—Drinking vessels of brass, large and round.

Δηνάριον ὀλίγον—A small quantity of denarii: for the use of merchants resident in the country.

Οἶνος Λαοδικηνὸς καὶ Ἰταλικὸς οῦ πολῦς—Wine, Laodikean, i.e. Syrian, from Laodike, (now Latakia) and Italian, but not much.

Ἔλαιον οὐ πολύ—Oil, but not much.

Ἀργυρώματα καὶ χρυσώματα τοπικῷ ῥυθμῷ κατεσκευασμέναι—Gold and silver plate made according to the fashion of the country for the king.

Ἀβόλλαι—Cloaks for riding or for the camp.

Καυνάκαὶ ἁπλοῖ—Dresses simply made of skins with the hair or fur on. These two articles of dress are not of much value.

These articles are imported from the interior parts of Ariakê:—

Σίδηρος Ἰνδικὸς—Indian iron.

Στόμωμα—Sharp blades.

Ὀθόνιον Ἰνδικὸν τὸ πλατύτερον, ἡ λεγομένη μοναχὴ.—Monakhê,[17] Indian cotton cloth of great width.

Σαγματογῆναι—Cotton for stuffing.

Περιζώματα—Sashes or girdles.

Καυνάκαὶ—Dresses of skin with the hair or fur on.

Μολόχινα—Webs of cloth mallow-tinted.

Σινδόνες ὀλίγαι—Fine muslins in small quantity.

Λάκκος χρωμάτινος—Gum-lac: yielding Lake.

The articles locally produced for export are ivory, tortoise-shell, and rhinoceros. Most of the goods which supply the market arrive any time from January to September—that is, from Tybi to Thôth. The best season, however, for ships from Egypt to put in here is about the month of September.

7. From this bay the Arabian Gulf trends eastward, and at Aualitês is contracted to its narrowest. At a distance of about 4000 stadia (from Adouli), if you still sail along the same coast, you reach other marts of Barbaria, called the marts beyond (the Straits), which occur in successive order, and which, though harbourless, afford at certain seasons of the year good and safe anchorage. The first district you come to is that called Aualitês, where the passage across the strait to the opposite point of Arabia is shortest. Here is a small port of trade, called, like the district, Aualitês, which can be approached only by little boats and rafts. The imports of this place are—

Ὑαλὴ λίθια σύμμικτος—Flint glass of various sorts.

Χυλός] Διοσπολιτικῆς ὄμφακος—Juice of the sour grape of Diospolis.

Ἰμάτια βαρβαρικὰ σύμμικτα γεγναμμένα—Cloths of different kinds worn in Barbaria dressed by the fuller.

Σῖτος—Corn.

Οἶνος—Wine.

Κασσιτερος ὀλίγος—A little tin.

The exports, which are sometimes conveyed on rafts across the straits by the Berbers themselves to Okêlis and Mouza on the opposite coast, are—

Ἀρώματα—Odoriferous gums.

Ἐλέφας ὀλίγος—Ivory in small quantity.

Χελώνη—Tortoise-shell.

Σμύρνα ἐλαχίστη διαφέρουσα δὲ τῆς ἄλλης—Myrrh in very small quantity, but of the finest sort.

Μάκειρ—Macer.

The barbarians forming the population of the place are rude and lawless men.

(6, 7) From this bay the coast of the gulf, according to our author, has a more easterly direction to the Straits, the distance to which from Adouli is stated at 4,000 stadia, an estimate much too liberal. In all this extent of coast the Periplûs mentions only the bay of the Opsian-stones and conducts us at once from thence to Aualités at the straits. Strabo however, and Juba, and Pliny, and Ptolemy mention several places in this tract, such as Arsinoë, Berenîkê, Epideirês, the Grove of Eumenês, the Chase of Puthangelos, the Territory of the Elephantophagoi, &c. The straits are called by Ptolemy Deirê or Dêrê (i. e. the neck), a word which from its resemblance in sound to the Latin Dirae has sometimes been explained to mean “the terrible.” (I. xv. 11; IV. vii. 9; VIII. xvi. 12). “The Periplûs,” Vincent remarks, “makes no mention of Deirê, but observes that the point of contraction is close to Abalitês or the Abalitik mart; it is from this mart that the coast of Africa falling down first to the South and curving afterwards towards the East is styled the Bay of Aualitês by Ptolemy, (IV. vii. 10, 20, 27, 30, 39,) but in the Periplûs this name is confined to a bay immediately beyond the straits which D’Anville has likewise inserted in his map, but which I did not fully understand till I obtained Captain Cook’s chart and found it perfectly consistent with the Periplûs.” It is the gulf of Tejureh or Zeyla.

The tract of country extending from the Straits to Cape Arômata (now Guardafui) is called at the present day Adel. It is described by Strabo (XVI. iv. 14), who copies his account of it from Artemidoros. He mentions no emporium, nor any of the names which occur in the Periplûs except the haven of Daphnous. [Bandar Mariyah, lat. 11° 46´ N., long. 50° 38´ E.] He supplies however many particulars regarding the region which are left unnoticed by our author as having no reference to commerce—particulars, however, which prove that these parts which were resorted to in the times of the Ptolemies for elephant-hunting were much better known to the ancients than they were till quite recently known to ourselves. Ptolemy gives nearly the same series of names (IV. vii. 9, 10) as the Periplûs, but with some discrepancies in the matter of their distances which he does not so accurately state. His list is: Dêre, a city; Abalitês or Aualitês, a mart; Malaô, a mart; Moundou or Mondou, a mart; Mondou, an island; Mosulon, a cape and a mart; Kobê, a mart; Elephas, a mountain; Akkanai or Akannai, a mart; Arômata, a cape and a mart.

The mart of Abalitês is represented by the modern Zeyla [lat. 11° 22´ N., long. 43° 29´ E., 79 miles from the straits.] On the N. shore of the gulf are Abalit and Tejureh. Abalit is 43 miles from the straits, and Tejureh 27 miles from Abalit. This is the Zouileh of Ebn Haukal and the Zalegh of Idrisi. According to the Periplûs it was near the straits, but Ptolemy has fixed it more correctly at the distance from them of 50 or 60 miles.

8. Beyond Aualitês there is another mart, superior to it, called Malaô, at a distance by sea of 800 stadia. The anchorage is an open road, sheltered, however, by a cape protruding eastward. The people are of a more peaceable disposition than their neighbours. The imports are such as have been already specified, with the addition of—

Πλείονες χιτῶνες—Tunics in great quantity.

Σάγοι Ἀρσινοητικοι γεγναμμένοι καὶ βεβαμμένοι—Coarse cloaks (or blankets) manufactured at Arsinoê, prepared by the fuller and dyed.

Μελίεφθα ὀλίγα—A few utensils made of copper fused with honey.

Σίδερος—Iron.

Δηνάριον οὐ πολὺ χρυσοῦντε καὶ ἀργυροῦν—Specie,—gold and silver, but not much.

The exports from this locality are—

Σμύρνα—Myrrh.

Λίβανος ὁ περατικος ὀλίγὸς—Frankincense which we call peratic, i.e. from beyond the straits, a little only.

Κασσία σκληροτέρα—Cinnamon of a hard grain.

Δούακα—Douaka (an inferior kind of cinnamon).

Κάγκαμον—The gum (for fumigation) kangkamon. ‘Dekamalli,’ gum.

Μάκειρ—The spice macer, which is carried to Arabia.

Σώματα σπανίως—Slaves, a few.

(8) Malaô as a mart was much superior to Abalitês, from which our author estimates its distance to be 800 stadia, though it is in reality greater. From the description he gives of its situation it must be identified with Berbereh [lat. 10° 25´ N., long. 45° 1´ E.] now the most considerable mart on this part of the coast. Vincent erroneously places it between Zeyla and the straits.

9. Distant from Malaô two days’ sail is the trading port of Moundou, where ships find a safer anchorage by mooring at an island which lies very close to shore. The exports and imports are similar to those of the preceding marts, with the addition of the fragrant gum called Mokrotou, a peculiar product of the place. The native traders here are uncivilized in their manners.

(9) The next mart after Malaô is Moundou, which, as we learn from Ptolemy, was also the name of an adjacent island—that which is now called Meyet or Burnt-island [lat. 11° 12´ N., long. 47° 17´ E., 10 miles east of Bandar Jedid].

10. After Moundou, if you sail eastward as before for two or three days, there comes next Mosullon, where it is difficult to anchor. It imports the same sorts of commodities as have been already mentioned, and also utensils of silver and others of iron but not so many, and glass-ware. It exports a vast amount of cinnamon (whence it is a port requiring ships of heavy burden) and other fragrant and aromatic products, besides tortoise-shell, but in no great quantity, and the incense called mokrotou inferior to that of Moundou, and frankincense brought from parts further distant, and ivory and myrrh though in small quantity.

(10) At a distance beyond it of two or three days’ sail occurs Mosulon, which is the name both of a mart and of a promontory. It is mentioned by Pliny (VI. 34), who says: “Further on is the bay of Abalitês, the island of Diodôrus and other islands which are desert. On the mainland, which has also deserts, occur a town Gaza [Bandar Gazim, long. 49° 13´ E.], the promontory and port of Mosylon, whence cinnamon is exported. Sesostris led his army to this point and no further. Some writers place one town of Ethiopia beyond it, Baricaza, which lies on the coast. According to Juba the Atlantic Sea begins at the promontory of Mossylon.” Juba evidently confounded this promontory with Cape Arômata, and Ptolemy, perhaps in consequence, makes its projection more considerable than it is. D’Anville and Gosselin thought Mossulon was situated near the promontory Mete, where is a river, called the Soal, which they supposed preserved traces of the name of Mossulon. This position however cannot be reconciled with the distances given in the Periplûs, which would lead us to look for it where Guesele is placed in the latest description given of this coast. Vincent on very inadequate grounds would identify it with Barbara or Berbera. [Müller places it at Bandar Barthe and Ras Antarah, long. 49° 35´ E.]

11. After leaving Mosullon, and sailing past a place called Neiloptolemaios, and past Tapatêgê and the Little Laurel-grove, you are conducted in two days to Capo Elephant. Here is a stream called Elephant River, and the Great Laurel-grove called Akannai, where, and where only, is produced the peratic frankincense. The supply is most abundant, and it is of the very finest quality.

(11) After Mosulon occurs Cape Elephant, at some distance beyond Neiloptolemaios, Tapatêgê, and the Little Laurel-grove. At the Cape is a river and the Great Laurel-grove called Akannai. Strabo in his account of this coast mentions a Neilospotamia which however can hardly be referred to this particular locality which pertains to the region through which the Khori or San Pedro flows, of which Idrisi (I. 45) thus writes: “At two journeys’ distance from Markah in the desert is a river which is subject to risings like the Nile and on the banks of which they sow dhorra.” Regarding Cape Elephant Vincent says, “it is formed by a mountain conspicuous in the Portuguese charts under the name of Mount Felix or Felles from the native term Jibel Fîl, literally, Mount Elephant. The cape [Ras Filik, 800 ft. high, lat. 11° 57´ N., long. 50° 37´ E.] is formed by the land jutting up to the North from the direction of the coast which is nearly East and West, and from its northernmost point the land falls off again South-East to Râs 'Asir—Cape Guardafui, the Arômata of the ancients. We learn from Captain Saris, an English navigator, that there is a river at Jibel Fîl. In the year 1611 he stood into a bay or harbour there which he represents as having a safe entrance for three ships abreast: he adds also that several sorts of gums very sweet in burning were still purchased by the Indian ships from Cambay which touched here for that purpose in their passage to Mocha.” The passage in the Periplûs where these places are mentioned is very corrupt. Vincent, who regards the greater Daphnôn (Laurel-grove) as a river called Akannai, says, “Neither place or distance is assigned to any of these names, but we may well allot the rivers Daphnôn and Elephant to the synonymous town and cape; and these may be represented by the modern Mete and Santa Pedro.” [Müller places Elephas at Ras el Fîl, long. 50° 37´ E., and Akannai at Ulûlah Bandar, long. 50° 56´ E., but they may be represented by Ras Ahileh, where a river enters through a lagoon in 11° 46´, and Bonah, a town with wells of good water in lat. 11° 58´ N., long. 50° 51´ E.]

12. After this, the coast now inclining to the south, succeeds the mart of Arômata, and a bluff headland running out eastward which forms the termination of the Barbarine coast. The roadstead is an open one, and at certain seasons dangerous, as the place lies exposed to the north wind. A coming storm gives warning of its approach by a peculiar prognostic, for the sea turns turbid at the bottom and changes its colour. When this occurs, all hasten for refuge to the great promontory called Tabai, which affords a secure shelter. The imports into this mart are such as have been already mentioned; while its products are cinnamon, gizeir (a finer sort of cinnamon), asuphê (an ordinary sort), fragrant gums, magla, motô (an inferior cinnamon), and frankincense.

(12) We come now to the great projection Cape Arômata, which is a continuation of Mount Elephant. It is called in Arabic Jerd Hafûn or Ras Asir; in Idrisi, Carfouna, whence the name by which it is generally known. [The South point 11° 40´ is Râs Shenarif or Jerd Hafûn; the N. point 11° 51´ is Râs 'Asir.] It formed the limit of the knowledge of this coast in the time of Strabo, by whom it is called Notou Keras or South Horn. It is described as a very high bluff point and as perpendicular as if it were scarped. [Jerd Hafûn is 2500 feet high.] The current comes round it out of the gulf with such violence that it is not to be stemmed without a brisk wind, and during the South-West Monsoon, the moment you are past the Cape to the North there is a stark calm with insufferable heat. The current below Jerd Hafûn is noticed by the Periplûs as setting to the South, and is there perhaps equally subject to the change of the monsoon. With this account of the coast from the straits to the great Cape may be compared that which has been given by Strabo, XVI. iv. 14:

“From Deirê the next country is that which bears aromatic plants. The first produces myrrh and belongs to the Ichthyophagi and Creophagi. It bears also the persea, peach or Egyptian almond, and the Egyptian fig. Beyond is Licha, a hunting ground for elephants. There are also in many places standing pools of rainwater. When these are dried up, the elephants with their trunks and tusks dig holes and find water. On this coast there are two very large lakes extending as far as the promontory Pytholaus. One of them contains salt water and is called a sea; the other fresh water and is the haunt of hippopotami and crocodiles. On the margin grows the papyrus. The ibis is seen in the neighbourhood of this place. Next is the country which produces frankincense; it has a promontory and a temple with a grove of poplars. In the inland parts is a tract along the banks of a river bearing the name of Isis, and another that of Nilus, both of which produce myrrh and frankincense. Also a lagoon filled with water from the mountains. Next the watch-post of the Lion and the port of Pythangelus. The next tract bears the false cassia. There are many tracts in succession on the sides of rivers on which frankincense grows, and rivers extending to the cinnamon country. The river which bounds this tract produces rushes (φλους) in great abundance. Then follows another river and the port of Daphnus, and a valley called Apollo’s which bears besides frankincense, myrrh and cinnamon. The latter is more abundant in places far in the interior. Next is the mountain Elephas, a mountain projecting into the sea and a creek; then follows the large harbour of Psygmus, a watering place called that of Kunocephali and the last promontory of this coast Notu-ceras (or the Southern Horn). After doubling this cape towards the south we have no more descriptions of harbours or places because nothing is known of the sea-coast beyond this point.” [Bohn’s Transl.] According to Gosselin, the Southern Horn corresponds with the Southern Cape of Bandel-caus, where commences the desert coast of Ajan, the ancient Azania.

According to the Periplûs Cape Arômata marked the termination of Barbaria and the beginning of Azania. Ptolemy however distinguishes them differently, defining the former as the interior and the latter as the sea-board of the region to which these names were applied.

The description of the Eastern Coast of Africa which now follows is carried, as has been already noticed, as far as Rhapta, a place about 6 degrees South of the Equator, but which Vincent places much farther South, identifying it with Kilwa.

The places named on this line of coast are: a promontory called Tabai, a Khersonesos; Opônê, a mart; the Little and the Great Apokopa; the Little and the Great Coast; the Dromoi or courses of Azania (first that of Serapiôn, then that of Nikôn); a number of rivers; a succession of anchorages, seven in number; the Paralaoi islands; a strait or canal; the island of Menouthias; and then Rhapta, beyond which, as the author conceived, the ocean curved round Africa until it met and amalgamated with the Hesperian or Western Ocean.

13. If, on sailing from Tabai, you follow the coast of the peninsula formed by the promontory, you are carried by the force of a strong current to another mart 400 stadia distant, called Opônê, which imports the commodities already mentioned, but produces most abundantly cinnamon, spice, motô, slaves of a very superior sort, chiefly for the Egyptian market, and tortoise-shell of small size but in large quantity and of the finest quality known.

(13) Tabai, to which the inhabitants of the Great Cape fled for refuge on the approach of a storm, cannot, as Vincent and others have supposed, be Cape Orfui, for it lay at too great a distance for the purpose. The projection is meant which the Arabs call Banna. [Or, Tabai may be identified with Râs Shenarif, lat. 11° 40´ N.] Tabai, Müller suggests, may be a corruption for Tabannai.

“From the foreign term Banna,” he says, “certain Greeks in the manner of their countrymen invented Panos or Panôn or Panô or Panôna Kômê. Thus in Ptolemy (I. 17 and IV. 7) after Arômata follows Panôn Kômê, which Mannert has identified with Benna. [Khor Banneh is a salt lake, with a village, inside Râs Ali Beshgêl, lat. 11° 9´ N., long. 51° 9´ E.] Stephen of Byzantium may be compared, who speaks of Panos as a village on the Red Sea which is also called Panôn.” The conjecture, therefore, of Letronnius that Panôn Kômê derived its name from the large apes found there, called Pânes, falls to the ground. Opônê was situated on the Southern shores of what the Periplûs calls a Khersonese, which can only be the projection now called Ras Hafûn or Cape D’Orfui (lat. 10° 25´ N.). Ptolemy (I. 17) gives the distance of Opônê from Panôn Kômê at a 6 days’ journey, from which according to the Periplûs it was only 400 stadia distant. That the text of Ptolemy is here corrupt cannot be doubted, for in his tables the distance between the two places is not far from that which is given in the Periplûs. Probably, as Müller conjectures, he wrote ὁδόν ἡμέρας (a day’s journey) which was converted into ὁδόν ἡμερ. ϛ´ (a six-days’ journey).

14. Ships set sail from Egypt for all these ports beyond the straits about the month of July—that is, Epiphi. The same markets are also regularly supplied with the products of places far beyond them—Ariakê and Barugaza. These products are—

Σῖτος —Corn.

Ὀρυζα[18]—Rice.

Βούτυρον—Butter, i. e. ghî.

Ἔλαιον σησάμινον—Oil of sesamum.

Ὀθόνιον ἥ τε μοναχὴ καὶ ἡ σαγματογήνη—Fine cotton called Monakhê, and a coarse kind for stuffing called Sagmatogene.

Περιζώματα—Sashes or girdles.

Μέλι τὸ καλάμινον τὸ λεγόμενον σάκχαρι—The honey of a reed, called sugar.

Some traders undertake voyages for this commerce expressly, while others, as they sail along the coast we are describing, exchange their cargoes for such others as they can procure. There is no king who reigns paramount over all this region, but each separate seat of trade is ruled by an independent despot of its own.

(14) At this harbour is introduced the mention of the voyage which was annually made between the coast of India and Africa in days previous to the appearance of the Greeks on the Indian Ocean, which has already been referred to.

15. After Opônê, the coast now trending more to the south, you come first to what are called the little and the great Apokopa (or Bluffs) of Azania, where there are no harbours, but only roads in which ships can conveniently anchor. The navigation of this coast, the direction of which is now to the south-west, occupies six days. Then follow the Little Coast and the Great Coast, occupying other six days, when in due order succeed the Dromoi (or Courses) of Azania, the one going by the name of Sarapiôn, and the other by that of Nikôn. Proceeding thence, you pass the mouths of numerous rivers, and a succession of other roadsteads lying apart one from another a day’s distance either by sea or by land. There are seven of them altogether, and they reach on to the Puralaoi islands and the narrow strait called the Canal, beyond which, where the coast changes its direction from south-west slightly more to south, you are conducted by a voyage of two days and two nights to Menouthias, an island stretching towards sunset, and distant from the mainland about 300 stadia. It is low-lying and woody, has rivers, and a vast variety of birds, and yields the mountain tortoise, but it has no wild beasts at all, except only crocodiles, which, however, are quite harmless. The boats are here made of planks sewn together attached to a keel formed of a single log of wood, and these are used for fishing and for catching turtle. This is also caught in another mode, peculiar to the island, by lowering wicker-baskets instead of nets, and fixing them against the mouths of the cavernous rocks which lie out in the sea confronting the beach.

(15) After leaving Opônê the coast first runs due south, then bends to the south-west, and here begins the coast which is called the Little and the Great Apokopa or Bluffs of Azania, the voyage along which occupies six days. This rocky coast, as we learn from recent explorations, begins at Râs Mabber [about lat. 9° 25´ N.], which is between 70 and 80 miles distant from Ras Hafûn and extends only to Râs-ul-Kheil [about lat. 7° 45´ N.], which is distant from Râs Mabber about 140 miles or a voyage of three or four days only. The length of this rocky coast (called Hazine by the Arabs) is therefore much exaggerated in the Periplûs. From this error we may infer that our author, who was a very careful observer, had not personally visited this coast. Ptolemy, in opposition to Marînos as well as the Periplûs, recognizes but one Apokopa, which he speaks of as a bay. Müller concludes an elaborate note regarding the Apokopa by the following quotation from the work of Owen, who made the exploration already referred to, “It is strange that the descriptive term Hazine should have produced the names Ajan, Azan and Azania in many maps and charts, as the country never had any other appellation than Barra Somâli or the land of the Somâli, a people who have never yet been collected under one government, and whose limits of subjection are only within bow-shot of individual chiefs. The coast of Africa from the Red Sea to the river Juba is inhabited by the tribe called Somâli. They are a mild people of pastoral habits and confined entirely to the coast; the whole of the interior being occupied by an untameable tribe of savages called Galla.”

The coast which follows the Apokopa, called the Little and the Great Aigialos or Coast, is so desolate that, as Vincent remarks, not a name occurs on it, neither is there an anchorage noticed, nor the least trace of commerce to be found. Yet it is of great extent—a six days’ voyage according to the Periplûs, but, according to Ptolemy, who is here more correct, a voyage of eight days, for, as we have seen, the Periplûs has unduly extended the Apokopa to the South.

Next follow the Dromoi or Courses of Azania, the first called that of Serapiôn and the other that of Nikôn. Ptolemy interposes a bay between the Great Coast and the port of Serapiôn, on which he states there was an emporium called Essina—a day’s sail distant from that port. Essina, it would therefore appear, must have been somewhere near where Makdashû [Magadoxo, lat. 2° 3´ N.] was built by the Arabs somewhere in the eighth century A.D. The station called that of Nikôn in the Periplûs appears in Ptolemy as the mart of Tonikê. These names are not, as some have supposed, of Greek origin, but distortions of the native appellations of the places into names familiar to Greek ears. That the Greeks had founded any settlements here is altogether improbable. At the time when the Periplûs was written all the trade of these parts was in the hands of the Arabs of Mouza. The port of Serapiôn may be placed at a promontory which occurs in 1° 40´ of N. lat. From this, Tonikê, according to the tables of Ptolemy, was distant 45´, and its position must therefore have agreed with that of Torre or Torra of our modern maps.

Next occurs a succession of rivers and roadsteads, seven in number, which being passed we are conducted to the Puralaän Islands, and what is called a canal or channel (διώρυξ). These islands are not mentioned elsewhere. They can readily be identified with the two called Manda and Lamou, which are situate at the mouths of large rivers, and are separated from the mainland and from each other by a narrow channel. Vincent would assign a Greek origin to the name of these islands. “With a very slight alteration,” he says, “of the reading, the Puralian Islands (Πῦρ ἁλιον, marine fire,) are the islands of the Fiery Ocean, and nothing seems more consonant to reason than for a Greek to apply the name of the Fiery Ocean to a spot which was the centre of the Torrid Zone and subject to the perpendicular rays of an equinoctial sun.” [The Juba islands run along the coast from Juba to about Lat. 1° 50´ S., and Manda bay and island is in Lat. 2° 12´ S.]

Beyond these islands occurs, after a voyage of two days and two nights, the island of Menouthias or Menouthesias, which it has been found difficult to identify with any certainty. “It is,” says Vincent, “the Eitenediommenouthesias of the Periplûs, a term egregiously strange and corrupted, but out of which the commentators unanimously collect Menoothias, whatever may be the fate of the remaining syllables. That this Menoothias,” he continues, “must have been one of the Zangibar islands is indubitable; for the distance from the coast of all three, Pemba, Zangibar, and Momfia, affords a character which is indelible; a character applicable to no other island from Guardafui to Madagascar.” He then identifies it with the island of Zangibar, lat. 6° 5´ S., in preference to Pemba, 5° 6´ S., which lay too far out of the course, and in preference to Momfia, 7° 50´ S. (though more doubtfully), because of its being by no means conspicuous, whereas Zangibar was so prominent and obvious above the other two, that it might well attract the particular attention of navigators, and its distance from the mainland is at the same time so nearly in accordance with that given in the Periplûs as to counterbalance all other objections. A writer in Smith’s Classical Geography, who seems to have overlooked the indications of the distances both of Ptolemy and the Periplûs, assigns it a position much further to the north than is reconcilable with these distances. He places it about a degree south from the mouth of the River Juba or Govind, just where an opening in the coral-reefs is now found. “The coasting voyage,” he says, “steering S. W., reached the island on the east side—a proof that it was close to the main.... It is true the navigator says it was 300 stadia from the mainland; but as there is no reason to suppose that he surveyed the island, this distance must be taken to signify the estimated width of the northern inlet separating the island from the main, and this estimate is probably much exaggerated. The mode of fishing with baskets is still practised in the Juba islands and along this coast. The formation of the coast of E. Africa in these latitudes—where the hills or downs upon the coast are all formed of a coral conglomerate comprising fragments of madrepore, shell and sand, renders it likely that the island which was close to the main 16 or 17 centuries ago, should now be united to it. Granting this theory of gradual transformation of the coast-line, the Menouthias of the Periplûs may be supposed to have stood in what is now the rich garden-land of Shamba, where the rivers carrying down mud to mingle with the marine deposit of coral drift covered the choked-up estuary with a rich soil.”

The island is said in the Periplûs to extend towards the West, but this does not hold good either in the case of Zangibar or any other island in this part of the coast. Indeed there is no one of them in which at the present day all the characteristics of Menouthias are found combined. Momfia, for instance, which resembles it somewhat in name, and which, as modern travellers tell us, is almost entirely occupied with birds and covered with their dung, does not possess any streams of water. These are found in Zangibar. The author may perhaps have confusedly blended together the accounts he had received from his Arab informants.

16. At the distance of a two days’ sail from this island lies the last of the marts of Azania, called Rhapta, a name which it derives from the sewn boats just mentioned. Ivory is procured here in the greatest abundance, and also turtle. The indigenous inhabitants are men of huge stature, who live apart from each other, every man ruling like a lord his own domain. The whole territory is governed by the despot of Mopharitis, because the sovereignty over it, by some right of old standing, is vested in the kingdom of what is called the First Arabia. The merchants of Mouza farm its revenues from the king, and employ in trading with it a great many ships of heavy burden, on board of which they have Arabian commanders and factors who are intimately acquainted with the natives and have contracted marriage with them, and know their language and the navigation of the coast.

(16) We arrive next and finally at Rhapta, the last emporium on the coast known to the author. Ptolemy mentions not only a city of this name, but also a river and a promontory. The name is Greek (from ῥάπτειν, to sew), and was applied to the place because the vessels there in use were raised from bottoms consisting of single trunks of trees by the addition of planks which were sewn together with the fibres of the cocoa. “It is a singular fact,” as Vincent remarks, “that this peculiarity should be one of the first objects which attracted the attention of the Portuguese upon their reaching this coast. They saw them first at Mozambique, where they were called Almeidas, but the principal notice of them in most of their writers is generally stated at Kilwa, the very spot which we have supposed to receive its name from vessels of the same construction.” Vincent has been led from this coincidence to identify Rhapta with Kilwa [lat. 8° 50´ S.]. Müller however would place it not so far south, but somewhere in the Bay of Zangibar. The promontory of Rhaptum, he judges from the indications of the Periplûs to be the projection which closes the bay in which lies the island of Zangibar, and which is now known as Moinanokalû or Point Pouna, lat. 7° S. The parts beyond this were unknown, and the southern coast of Africa, it was accordingly thought by the ancient geographers, began here. Another cape however is mentioned by Ptolemy remoter than Rhaptum and called Prasum (that is the Green Cape) which may perhaps be Cape Delgado, which is noted for its luxuriant vegetation. The same author calls the people of Rhapta, the Rhapsioi Aithiopes. They are described in the Periplûs as men of lofty stature, and this is still a characteristic of the Africans of this coast. The Rhapsii were, in the days of our author, subject to the people of Mouza in Arabia just as their descendants are at the present day subject to the Sultan of Maskat. Their commerce moreover still maintains its ancient characteristics. It is the African who still builds and mans the ships while the Arab is the navigator and supercargo. The ivory is still of inferior quality, and the turtle is still captured at certain parts of the coast.

17. The articles imported into these marts are principally javelins manufactured at Mouza, hatchets, knives, awls, and crown glass of various sorts, to which must be added corn and wine in no small quantity landed at particular ports, not for sale, but to entertain and thereby conciliate the barbarians. The articles which these places export are ivory, in great abundance but of inferior quality to that obtained at Adouli, rhinoceros, and tortoise-shell of fine quality, second only to the Indian, and a little nauplius.

18. These marts, we may say, are about the last on the coast of Azania—the coast, that is, which is on your right as you sail south from Berenîkê. For beyond these parts an ocean, hitherto unexplored, curves round towards sunset, and, stretching along the southern extremities of Ethiopia, Libya, and Africa, amalgamates with the Western Sea.

19. To the left, again, of Berenikê, if you sail eastward from Myos-Hormos across the adjacent gulf for two days, or perhaps three, you arrive at a place having a port and a fortress which is called Leukê Kômê, and forming the point of communication with Petra, the residence of Malikhas, the king of the Nabatæans. It ranks as an emporium of trade, since small vessels come to it laden with merchandize from Arabia; and hence an officer is deputed to collect the duties which are levied on imports at the rate of twenty-five per cent. of their value, and also a centurion who commands the garrison by which the place is protected.

(18, 19) Our author having thus described the African coast as far southward as it was known on its Eastern side, reverts to Berenikê and enters at once on a narrative of the second voyage—that which was made thence across the Northern head of the gulf and along the coast of Arabia to the emporium of Mouza near the Straits. The course is first northward, and the parts about Berenikê as you bear away lie therefore now on your left hand. Having touched at Myos Hormos the course on leaving it is shaped eastward across the gulf by the promontory Pharan, and Leukê Kômê[19] is reached after three or four days’ sailing. This was a port in the kingdom of the Nabathæans (the Nebaioth of Scripture), situated perhaps near the mouth of the Elanitic Gulf or eastern arm of the Red Sea, now called the Gulf of Akabah. Much difference of opinion has prevailed as to its exact position, since the encroachment of the land upon the sea has much altered the line of coast here. Mannert identified it with the modern Yenbo [lat. 24° 5´ N., long. 38° 3´ E., the port of Medina], Gosselin with Mowilah [lat. 27° 38´ N., long. 35° 28´ E.,] Vincent with Eynounah [lat. 28° 3´ N., long. 35° 13´ E.—the Onne of Ptolemy], Reichhard with Istabel Antai, and Rüppel with Wejh [lat. 26° 13´ N., long. 36° 27´ E]. Müller prefers the opinion held by Bochart, D’Anville, Quatremêre, Noel des Vergers, and Ritter, who agree in placing it at the port called Hauara [lat. 24° 59´ N., long. 37° 16´ E.] mentioned by Idrisi (I. p. 332), who describes it as a village inhabited by merchants carrying on a considerable trade in earthen vases manufactured at a clay-pit in their neighbourhood. Near it lies the island of Hassani [lat. 24° 59´ N., long. 37° 3´ E.], which, as Wellsted reports, is conspicuous from its white appearance. Leukê Kômê is mentioned by various ancient authors, as for instance Strabo, who, in a passage wherein he recounts the misfortunes which befel the expedition which Aelius led into Nabathaea, speaks of the place as a large mart to which and from which the camel traders travel with ease and in safety from Petra and back to Petra with so large a body of men and camels as to differ in no respect from an army.

The merchandize thus conveyed from Leukê Kômê to Petra was passed on to Rhinokoloura in Palestine near Egypt, and thence to other nations, but in his own time the greater part was transported by the Nile to Alexandria. It was brought down from India and Arabia to Myos Hormos, whence it was first conveyed on camels to Koptos and thence by the Nile to Alexandria. The Nabathaean king, at the time when our author visited Leukê Kômê, was, as he tells us, Malikhas, a name which means ‘king.’ Two Petraean sovereigns so called are mentioned by Josêphos, of whom the latter was contemporary with Herod. The Malikhas of the Periplûs is however not mentioned in any other work. The Nabathaean kingdom was subverted in the time of Trajan, A.D. 105, us we learn from Dio Cassius (cap. lxviii. 14), and from Eutropius (viii. 2, 9), and from Ammianus Marcellinus (xiv. 8).

20. Beyond this mart, and quite contiguous to it, is the realm of Arabia, which stretches to a great distance along the coast of the Red Sea. It is inhabited by various tribes, some speaking the same language with a certain degree of uniformity, and others a language totally different. Here also, as on the opposite continent, the sea-board is occupied by Ikhthyophagoi, who live in dispersed huts; while the men of the interior live either in villages, or where pasture can be found, and are an evil race of men, speaking two different languages. If a vessel is driven from her course upon this shore she is plundered, and if wrecked the crew on escaping to land are reduced to slavery. For this reason they are treated as enemies and captured by the chiefs and kings of Arabia. They are called Kanraîtai. Altogether, therefore, the navigation of this part of the Arabian coast is very dangerous: for, apart from the barbarity of its people, it has neither harbours nor good roadsteads, and it is foul with breakers, and girdled with rocks which render it inaccessible. For this reason when sailing south we stand off from a shore in every way so dreadful, and keep our course down the middle of the gulf, straining our utmost to reach the more civilized part of Arabia, which begins at Burnt Island. From this onward the people are under a regular government, and, as their country is pastoral, they keep herds of cattle and camels.

(20) At no great distance from Leukê Kômê the Nabathaean realm terminates and Arabia begins. The coast is here described as most dismal, and as in every way dangerous to navigation. The inhabitants at the same time are barbarians, destitute of all humanity, who scruple not to attack and plunder wrecked ships and to make slaves of their crews if they escaped to land. The mariner therefore, shunned these inhospitable shores, and standing well out to sea, sailed down the middle of the gulf. The tribe here spoken of was that perhaps which is represented by the Hutemi of the present day, and the coast belonged to the part of Arabia now called Hejid.

A more civilized region begins at an island called Burnt island, which answers to the modern Zebâyir [about lat. 15° 5´ N., long. 42° 12´ E.], an island which was till recently volcanic.

21. Beyond this tract, and on the shore of a bay which occurs at the termination of the left (or east) side of the gulf, is Mouza, an established and notable mart of trade, at a distance south from Berenikê of not more than 12,000 stadia. The whole place is full of Arabian shipmasters and common sailors, and is absorbed in the pursuits of commerce, for with ships of its own fitting out, it trades with the marts beyond the Straits on the opposite coast, and also with Barugaza.

(21) Beyond this is the great emporium called Mouza, [lat. 13° 43´ N., long. 43° 5´ 14´´ E.] situated in a bay near the termination of the Gulf, and at a distance from Berenikê of 12,000 stadia. Here the population consists almost entirely of merchants and mariners, and the place is in the highest degree commercial. The commodities of the country are rich and numerous (though this is denied by Pliny), and there is a great traffic in Indian articles brought from Barugaza (Bharoch). This port, once the most celebrated and most frequented in Yemen, is now the village Musa about twenty-five miles north from Mokhâ, which has replaced it as a port, the foundation of which dates back no more than 400 years ago. “Twenty miles inland from Mokhâ,” says Vincent, “Niebuhr discovered a Musa still existing, which he with great probability supposes to be the ancient mart now carried inland to this distance by the recession of the coast.” [He must have confounded it with Jebel Musa, due east of Mokhâ, at the commencement of the mountain country.] It is a mere village badly built. Its water is good, and is said to be drunk by the wealthier inhabitants of Mokhâ. Bochart identified Mouza with the Mesha mentioned by Moses.

22. Above this a three days’ journey off lies the city of Sauê, in the district called Mopharitis. It is the residence of Kholaibos, the despot of that country.

(22) The Periplûs notices two cities that lay inland from Mouza—the 1st Sauê, the Savê of Pliny (VI. xxvi., 104), and also of Ptolemy (VI. vii., p. 411), who places it at a distance of 500 stadia S. E. of Mouza. The position and distance direct us to the city of Taaes, which lies near a mountain called Saber. Sauê belonged to a district called Mapharitis or Mophareitês, a name which appears to survive in the modern Mharras, which designates a mountain lying N. E. from Taaes. It was ruled by Kholaibos (Arabicé—Khaleb), whom our author calls a tyrant, and who was therefore probably a Sheikh who had revolted from his lawful chief, and established himself as an independent ruler.

23. A journey of nine days more conducts us to Saphar, the metropolis of Kharibaêl, the rightful sovereign of two contiguous tribes, the Homerites and the Sabaïtai, and, by means of frequent embassies and presents, the friend of the Emperors.

(23) The other city was Saphar, the metropolis of the Homerîtai, i.e. the Himaryi—the Arabs of Yemen, whose power was widely extended, not only in Yemen but in distant countries both to the East and West. Saphar is called Sapphar by Ptolemy (VI. vii.), who places it in 14° N. lat. Philostorgios calls it Tapharon, and Stephen of Byzantium Tarphara. It is now Dhafar or Dsoffar or Zaphar. In Edrisi (I. p. 148) it appears as Dhofar, and he thus writes of it:—“It is the capital of the district Jahsseb. It was formerly one of the greatest and most famous of cities. The kings of Yemen made it their residence, and there was to be seen the palace of Zeidan. These structures are now in ruins, and the population has been much decreased, nevertheless the inhabitants have preserved some remnants of their ancient riches.” The ruins of the city and palace still exist in the neighbourhood of Jerim, which Niebuhr places in 14° 30´ N. lat. The distance from Sauê to Saphar in the Periplûs is a nine days’ journey. Niebuhr accomplished it however in six. Perhaps, as Müller suggests, the nine days’ journey is from Mouza to Saphar. The sovereign of Saphar is called by our author Kharibaêl, a name which is not found among the Himyaritic kings known from other sources. In Ptolemy the region is called Elisarôn, from a king bearing that name.

24. The mart of Mouza has no harbour, but its sea is smooth, and the anchorage good, owing to the sandy nature of the bottom. The commodities which it imports are—

Πορφύρα, διάφορος καὶ χυδαία—Purple cloth, fine and ordinary.

Ἱματισμίς Ἀραβικὸς χειριδωτὸς, ὅτε ἁπλοῦς καὶ ὁ κοινὸς καὶ σκοτουλάτος καὶ διάχρυσος—Garments made up in the Arabian fashion, some plain and common, and others wrought in needlework and inwoven with gold.

Κρόκος—Saffron.

Κύπερος—The aromatic rush Kyperos. (Turmeric?)

Ὀθόνιον—Muslins.

Ἀβόλλαι—Cloaks.

Λώδικες οὐ πολλαὶ, ἁπλοῖ τε καὶ ἐντόπιοι—Quilts, in small quantity, some plain, others adapted to the fashion of the country.

Ζῶναι σκιωταὶ—Sashes of various shades of colour.

Μύρον μέτριον—Perfumes, a moderate quantity.

Χρῆμα ἱκανὸν—Specie as much as is required.

Οἶνος—Wine.

Σῖτος οὐ πολύς—Corn, but not much.

The country produces a little wheat and a great abundance of wine. Both the king and the despot above mentioned receive presents consisting of horses, pack-saddle mules, gold plate, silver plate embossed, robes of great value, and utensils of brass. Mouza exports its own local products—myrrh of the finest quality that has oozed in drops from the trees, both the Gabiræan and Minœan kinds; white marble (or alabaster), in addition to commodities brought from the other side of the Gulf, all such as were enumerated at Adouli. The most favourable season for making a voyage to Mouza is the month of September,—that is Thôth,—but there is nothing to prevent it being made earlier.

(24) Adjacent to the Homeritai, and subject to them when the Periplûs was written, were the Sabæans, so famous in antiquity for their wealth, luxury and magnificence. Their country, the Sheba of Scripture, was noted as the land of frankincense. Their power at one time extended far and wide, but in the days of our author they were subject to the Homerites ruled over by Kharibaêl, who was assiduous in courting the friendship of Rome.

25. If on proceeding from Mouza you sail by the coast for about a distance of 300 stadia, there occurs, where the Arabian mainland and the opposite coast of Barbaria at Aualitês now approach each other, a channel of no great length which contracts the sea and encloses it within narrow bounds. This is 60 stadia wide, and in crossing it you come midway upon the island of Diodôros, to which it is owing that the passage of the straits is in its neighbourhood exposed to violent winds which blow down from the adjacent mountains. There is situate upon the shore of the straits an Arabian village subject to the same ruler (as Mouza), Okêlis by name, which is not so much a mart of commerce as a place for anchorage and supplying water, and where those who are bound for the interior first land and halt to refresh themselves.

(25) At a distance of 300 stadia beyond Mouza we reach the straits where the shores of Arabia and Africa advance so near to each other that the passage between them has only, according to the Periplûs, a width of 60 stadia, or 7½ miles. In the midst of the passage lies the island of Diodôros (now Perim), which is about 4½ miles long by 2 broad, and rises 230 feet above the level of the sea. The straits, according to Moresby, are 14½ geographical miles wide at the entrance between Bab-el-Mandab Cape (near which is Perim) and the opposite point or volcanic peak called Jibel Sijan. The larger of the two entrances is 11 miles wide, and the other only 1½. Strabo, Agathêmeros, and Pliny all agree with the Periplûs in giving 60 stadia as the breadth of the straits. The first passage of those dreaded straits was regarded as a great achievement, and was naturally ascribed to Sesostris as the voyage though the straits of Kalpê was ascribed to Heraklês.

Situated on the shores of the straits was a place called Okêlis. This was not a mart of commerce, but merely a bay with good anchorage and well supplied with water. It is identical with the modern Ghalla or Cella, which has a bay immediately within the straits. Strabo following Artemidoros notes here a promontory called Akila. Pliny (VI. xxxii. 157) mentions an emporium of the same name “ex quo in Indiam navigatur.” In xxvi., 104 of the same Book he says: “Indos petentibus utilissimum est ab Oceli egredi.” Ptolemy mentions a Pseudokêlis, which he places at the distance of half a degree from the emporium of Okêlis.

26. Beyond Okêlis, the sea again widening out towards the east, and gradually expanding into the open main, there lies, at about the distance of 1,200 stadia, Eudaimôn Arabia, a maritime village subject to that kingdom of which Kharibaêl is sovereign—a place with good anchorage, and supplied with sweeter and better water than that of Okêlis, and standing at the entrance of a bay where the land begins to retire inwards. It was called Eudaimôn (‘rich and prosperous’), because in bygone days, when the merchants from India did not proceed to Egypt, and those from Egypt did not venture to cross over to the marts further east, but both came only as far as this city, it formed the common centre of their commerce, as Alexandria receives the wares which pass to and fro between Egypt and the ports of the Mediterranean. Now, however, it lies in ruins, the Emperor having destroyed it not long before our own times.

(26) At a distance beyond Okêlis of 1,200 stadia is the port of Eudaimôn Arabia, which beyond doubt corresponds to 'Âden, [lat. 12° 45´ N., long. 45° 21´ E.] now so well-known as the great packet station between Suez and India. The opinion held by some that Aden is the Eden mentioned by the Prophet Ezekiel (xxvii. 23) is opposed by Ritter and Winer. It is not mentioned by Pliny, though it has been erroneously held that the Attanae, which he mentions in the following passage, was Aden. “Homnae et Attanae (v. 1. Athanae) quæ nunc oppida maxima celebrari a Persico mari negotiatores dicunt.” (vi. 32.) Ptolemy, who calls it simply Arabia, speaks of it as an emporium, and places after it at the distance of a degree and a half Melan Horos, or Black Hill, 17 miles from the coast, which is in long. 46° 59´ E. The place, as the Periplûs informs us, received the name of Eudaimôn from the great prosperity and wealth which it derived from being the great entrepôt of the trade between India and Egypt. It was in decay when that work was written, but even in the time of Ptolemy had begun to show symptoms of returning prosperity, and in the time of Constantine it was known as the ‘Roman Emporium,’ and had almost regained its former consequence, as is gathered from a passage in the works of the ecclesiastical historian Philostorgios. It is thus spoken of by Edrisi (I. p. 51): “'Âden is a small town, but renowned for its seaport whence ships depart that are destined for Sind, India, and China.” In the middle ages it became again the centre of the trade between India and the Red Sea, and thus regained that wonderful prosperity which in the outset had given it its name. In this flourishing condition it was found by Marco Polo, whose account of its wealth, power and influence is, as Vincent remarks, almost as magnificent as that which Agatharkhidês attributed to the Sabæans in the time of the Ptolemies, when the trade was carried on in the same manner. Agatharkhidês does not however mention the place by name, but it was probably the city which he describes without naming it as lying on the White Sea without the straits, whence, he says, the Sabæans sent out colonies or factories into India, and where the fleets from Persis, Karmania and the Indus arrived. The name of Aden is supposed to be a corruption from Eudaimôn.

27. To Eudaimôn Arabia at once succeeds a great length of coast and a bay extending 2,000 stadia or more, inhabited by nomadic tribes and Ikhthyophagoi settled in villages. On doubling a cape which projects from it you come to another trading seaport, Kanê, which is subject to Eleazos, king of the incense country. Two barren islands lie opposite to it, 120 stadia off—one called Orneôn, and the other Troullas. At some distance inland from Kanê is Sabbatha, the principal city of the district, where the king resides. At Kanê is collected all the incense that is produced in the country, this being conveyed to it partly on camels, and partly by sea on floats supported on inflated skins, a local invention, and also in boats. Kanê carries on trade with ports across the ocean—Barugaza, Skythia, and Omana, and the adjacent coast of Persis.

(27) The coast beyond Aden is possessed partly by wandering tribes, and partly by tribes settled in villages which subsist on fish. Here occurs a bay—that now called Ghubhet-al-Kamar, which extends upwards of 2,000 stadia, and ends in a promontory—that now called Râs-al-Asîdah or Bâ-l-hâf [lat. 13° 58´ N., long 48° 9´ S.—a cape with a hill near the fishing village of Gillah]. Beyond this lies another great mart called Kanê. It is mentioned by Pliny, and also by Ptolemy, who assigns it a position in agreement with the indications given in the Periplûs. It has been identified with the port now called Hisn Ghorâb [lat. 14° 0´ N. long. 48° 19´ E.]. Not far from this is an island called Halanî, which answers to the Troullas of our author. Further south is another island, which is called by the natives of the adjacent coast Sikkah, but by sailors Jibûs. This is covered with the dung of birds which in countless multitudes have always frequented it, and may be therefore identified with the Orneôn of the Periplûs. Kanê was subject to Eleazos, the king of the Frankincense Country, who resided at Sabbatha, or as it is called by Pliny (VI. xxxii. 155) Sabota, the capital of the Atramitae or Adramitae, a tribe of Sabæans from whom the division of Arabia now known as Hadhramaut takes its name. The position of this city cannot be determined with certainty. Wellsted, who proceeded into the interior from the coast near Hisn Ghorab through Wadi Meifah, came after a day’s journey and a half to a place called Nakb-el-Hajar, situated in a highly cultivated district, where he found ruins of an ancient city of the Himyarites crowning an eminence that rose gently with a double summit from the fertile plain. The city appeared to have been built in the most solid style of architecture, and to have been protected by a very lofty wall formed of square blocks of black marble, while the inscriptions plainly betokened that it was an old seat of the Himyarites. A close similarity could be traced between its ruins and those of Kanê, to which there was an easy communication by the valley of Meifah. This place, however, can hardly be regarded as Sabbatha without setting aside the distances given by Ptolemy, and Wellsted moreover learned from the natives that other ruins of a city of not less size were to be met with near a village called Esan, which could be reached by a three days’ journey.—(See Haines, Mem. of the S. Coast of Arab.)

28. From Egypt it imports, like Mouza, corn and a little wheat, cloths for the Arabian market, both of the common sort and the plain, and large quantities of a sort that is adulterated; also copper, tin, coral, styrax, and all the other articles enumerated at Mouza. Besides these there are brought also, principally for the king, wrought silver plate, and specie as well as horses and carved images, and plain cloth of a superior quality. Its exports are its indigenous products, frankincense and aloes, and such commodities as it shares in common with other marts on the same coast. Ships sail for this port at the same season of the year as those bound for Mouza, but earlier.

(28) With regard to the staple product of this region—frankincense, the Periplûs informs us that it was brought for exportation to Kanê. It was however in the first place, if we may credit Pliny, conveyed to the Metropolis. He says (xv. 32) that when gathered it was carried into Sabota on camels which could enter the city only by one particular gate, and that to take it by any other route was a crime punished by death. The priests, he adds, take a tithe for a deity named Sabis, and that until this impost is paid, the article cannot be sold.

Some writers would identify Sabbatha with Mariabo (Marab), but on insufficient grounds. It has also been conjectured that the name may be a lengthened form of Saba (Sheba), a common appellation for cities in Arabia Felix. [Müller places Sabbatha at Sawa, lat. 16° 13´ N., long. 48° 9´ E.]

29. As you proceed from Kanê the land retires more and more, and there succeeds another very deep and far-stretching gulf, Sakhalitês by name, and also the frankincense country, which is mountainous and difficult of access, having a dense air loaded with vapours [and] the frankincense exhaled from the trees. These trees, which are not of any great size or height, yield their incense in the form of a concretion on the bark, just as several of our trees in Egypt exude gum. The incense is collected by the hand of the king’s slaves, and malefactors condemned to this service as a punishment. The country is unhealthy in the extreme:—pestilential even to those who sail along the coast, and mortal to the poor wretches who gather the incense, who also suffer from lack of food, which readily cuts them off.

(29) The next place mentioned by our author after Kanê is a Bay called Sakhalîtes, which terminates at Suagros, a promontory which looks eastward, and is the greatest cape in the whole world. There was much difference of opinion among the ancient geographers regarding the position of this Bay, and consequently regarding that of Cape Suagros.

30. Now at this gulf is a promontory, the greatest in the world, looking towards the east, and called Suagros, at which is a fortress which protects the country, and a harbour, and a magazine to which the frankincense which is collected is brought. Out in the open sea, facing this promontory, and lying between it and the promontory of Arômata, which projects from the opposite coast, though nearer to Suagros, is the island going by the name of Dioskoridês, which is of great extent, but desert and very moist, having rivers and crocodiles and a great many vipers, and lizards of enormous size, of which the flesh serves for food, while the grease is melted down and used as a substitute for oil. This island does not, however, produce either the grape or corn. The population, which is but scanty, inhabits the north side of the island—that part of it which looks towards the mainland (of Arabia). It consists of an intermixture of foreigners, Arabs, Indians, and even Greeks, who resort hither for the purposes of commerce. The island produces the tortoise,—the genuine, the land, and the white sort: the latter very abundant, and distinguished for the largeness of its shell; also the mountain sort which is of extraordinary size and has a very thick shell, whereof the underpart cannot be used, being too hard to cut, while the serviceable part is made into moneyboxes, tablets, escritoires, and ornamental articles of that description. It yields also the vegetable dye (κιννάβαρι) called Indicum (or Dragon’s-blood), which is gathered as it distils from trees.

(30) Some would identify the latter with Ras-el-Had, and others on account of the similarity of the name with Cape Saugra or Saukirah [lat. 18° 8´ N., long. 56° 35´ E.], where Ptolemy places a city Suagros at a distance of 6 degrees from Kanê, But Suagros is undoubtedly Ras Fartak [lat. 15° 39´ N., long 52° 15´ E.], which is at a distance of 4 degrees from Hisn Ghorab, or Kanê, and which, rising to the height of 2,500 feet on a coast which is all low-lying, is a very conspicuous object, said to be discernible from a distance of 60 miles out at sea. Eighteen miles west from this promontory is a village called Saghar, a name which might probably have suggested to the Greeks that of Suagros. Consistent with this identification is the passage of Pliny (VI. 32) where he speaks of the island Dioscoridis (Sokotra) as distant from Suagros, which he calls the utmost projection of the coast, 2,240 stadia or 280 miles, which is only about 30 miles in excess of the real distance, 2,000 stadia.

With regard to the position of the Bay of Sakhalitês, Ptolemy, followed by Marcianus, places it to the East of Suagros. Marinos on the other hand, like the Periplûs, places it to the west of it. Muller agrees with Fresnel in regarding Sakhlê, mentioned by Ptolemy (VI. vii. 41) as 1½ degree East of Makalleh [lat. 14° 31´ N., long 49° 7´ W.] as the same with Shehr—which is now the name of all that mountainous region extending from the seaport of Makalleh to the bay in which lie the islands of Kurya Murya. He therefore takes this to be in the Regio Sakhalîtês, and rejects the opinion of Ptolemy as inconsistent with this determination. With regard to Shehr or Shehar [lat. 14° 38´ N., long. 49° 22´ E.] Yule (M. Polo, II. vol. p. 440, note) says: “Shihr or Shehr still exists on the Arabian Coast as a town and district about 330 miles east of Aden.” The name Shehr in some of the oriental geographies includes the whole Coast up to Oman. The hills of the Shehr and Dhafâr districts were the great source of produce of the Arabian frankincense.

The island of Dioskoridês (now Sokotra) is placed by the Periplûs nearer to Cape Suagros than to Cape Arômata—although its distance from the former is nearly double the distance from the latter. The name, though in appearance a Greek one, is in reality of Sanskrit origin; from Dvîpa Sukhâdâra, i.e. insula fortunata, ‘Island abode of Bliss.’ The accuracy of the statements made regarding it in the Periplûs is fully confirmed by the accounts given of it by subsequent writers. Kosmas, who wrote in the 6th century, says that the inhabitants spoke Greek, and that he met with people from it who were on their way to Ethiopia, and that they spoke Greek. “The ecclesiastical historian Nikephoros Kallistos,” says Yule, “seems to allude to the people of Sokotra when he says that among the nations visited by the Missionary Theophilus in the time of Constantius, were ‘the Assyrians on the verge of the outer Ocean, towards the East ... whom Alexander the Great, after driving them from Syria, sent thither to settle, and to this day they keep their mother tongue, though all of the blackest, through the power of the sun’s rays.’ The Arab voyagers of the 9th century say that the island was colonized with Greeks by Alexander the Great, in order to promote the culture of the Sokotrine aloes; when the other Greeks adopted Christianity these did likewise, and they had continued to retain their profession of it. The colonizing by Alexander is probably a fable, but invented to account for facts.” (Marco Polo II. 401.) The aloe, it may be noted, is not mentioned in the Periplûs as one of the products of the island. The islanders, though at one time Christians, are now Muhammadans, and subject as of yore to Arabia. The people of the interior are still of distinct race with curly hair, Indian complexion, and regular features. The coast people are mongrels of Arab and mixed descent. Probably in old times civilization and Greek may have been confined to the littoral foreigners. Marco Polo notes that so far back as the 10th century it was one of the stations frequented by the Indian corsairs called Bawârij, belonging to Kachh and Gujarat.

31. The island is subject to the king of the frankincense country, in the same way as Azania is subject to Kharibaël and the despot of Mopharitis. It used to be visited by some (merchants) from Mouza, and others on the homeward voyage from Limurikê and Barugaza would occasionally touch at it, importing rice, corn, Indian cotton and female-slaves, who, being rare, always commanded a ready market. In exchange for these commodities they would receive as fresh cargo great quantities of tortoise-shell. The revenues of the island are at the present day farmed out by its sovereigns, who, however, maintain a garrison in it for the protection of their interests.

32. Immediately after Suagros follows a gulf deeply indenting the mainland of Omana, and having a width of 600 stadia. Beyond it are high mountains, rocky and precipitous, and inhabited by men who live in caves. The range extends onward for 500 stadia, and beyond where it terminates lies an important harbour called Moskha, the appointed port to which the Sakhalitik frankincense is forwarded. It is regularly frequented by a number of ships from Kanê; and such ships as come from Limurikê and Barugaza too late in the season put into harbour here for the winter, where they dispose of their muslins, corn, and oil to the king’s officers, receiving in exchange frankincense, which lies in piles throughout the whole of Sakhalitis without a guard to protect it, as if the locality were indebted to some divine power for its security. Indeed, it is impossible to procure a cargo, either publicly or by connivance, without the king’s permission. Should one take furtively on board were it but a single grain, his vessel can by no possibility escape from harbour.

(32) Returning to the mainland the narrative conducts us next to Moskha, a seaport trading with Kanê, and a wintering place for vessels arriving late in the season from Malabar and the Gulf of Khambât. The distance of this place from Suagros is set down at upwards of 1,100 stadia, 600 of which represent the breadth of a bay which begins at the Cape, and is called Omana Al-Kamar. The occurrence of the two names Omana and Moskha in such close connexion led D’Anville to suppose that Moskha is identical with Maskat, the capital of Oman, the country lying at the south-east extremity of Arabia, and hence that Ras-el-Ḥad, beyond which Maskat lies, must be Cape Suagros. This supposition is, however, untenable, since the identification of Moskha with the modern Ausera is complete. For, in the first place, the Bay of Seger, which begins at Cape Fartak, is of exactly the same measurement across to Cape Thurbot Ali as the Bay of Omana, and again the distance from Cape Thurbot Ali [lat. 16° 38´ N., long. 53° 3´ E.] to Ras-al-Sair, the Ausara of Ptolemy, corresponds almost as exactly to the distance assigned by our author from the same Cape to Moskha. Moreover Pliny (XII. 35) notices that one particular kind of incense bore the name of Ausaritis, and, as the Periplûs states that Moskha was the great emporium of the incense trade, the identification is satisfactory.

There was another Moskha on this coast which was also a port. It lay to the west of Suagros, and has been identified with Koshîn [lat. 15° 21´ N. long. 51° 39´ E.]. Our author, though correct in his description of the coast, may perhaps have erred in his nomenclature; and this is the more likely to have happened as it scarcely admits of doubt that he had no personal knowledge of South Arabia beyond Kanê and Cape Suagros. Besides no other author speaks of an Omana so far to westward as the position assigned to the Bay of that name. The tract immediately beyond Moskha or Ausera is low and fertile, and is called Dofar or Zhafâr, after a famous city now destroyed, but whose ruins are still to be traced between Al-hâfâh and Addahariz. “This Dhafâr,” says Yule (Marco Polo II. p. 442 note) “or the bold fountain above it, is supposed to be the Sephar of Genesis X. 30.” It is certain that the Himyarites had spread their dominion as far eastward as this place. Marco Polo thus describes Dhafâr:—“It stands upon the sea, and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby.... Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes, also, it flows from the tree without any notch, this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.” Müller would identify Moskha with Zhafâr, and accounts for the discrepancy of designation by supposing that our author had confounded the name Maskat, which was the great seat of the traffic in frankincense with the name of the greatest city in the district which actually produced it. A similar confusion he thinks transferred the name of Oman to the same part of the country. The climate of the incense country is described as being extremely unhealthy, but its unhealthiness seems to have been designedly exaggerated.

33. From the port of Moskha onward to Asikh, a distance of about 1,500 stadia, runs a range of hills pretty close to the shore, and at its termination there are seven islands bearing the name of Zenobios, beyond which again we come to another barbarous district not subject to any power in Arabia, but to Persia. If when sailing by this coast you stand well out to sea so as to keep a direct course, then at about a distance from the island of Zenobios of 2,000 stadia you arrive at another island, called that of Sarapis, lying off shore, say, 120 stadia. It is about 200 stadia broad and 600 long, possessing three villages inhabited by a savage tribe of Ikhthyophagoi, who speak the Arabic language, and whose clothing consists of a girdle made from the leaves of the cocoa-palm. The island produces in great plenty tortoise of excellent quality, and the merchants of Kanê accordingly fit out little boats and cargo-ships to trade with it.

(33) Beyond Moskha the coast is mountainous as far as Asikh and the islands of Zenobios—a distance excessively estimated at 1,500 stadia. The mountains referred to are 5,000 feet in height, and are those now called Subaha. Asikh is readily to be identified with the Hâsek of Arabian geographers. Edrisi (I. p. 54) says: “Thence (from Marbat) to the town of Hâsek is a four days’ journey and a two days’ sail. Before Hâsek are the two islands of Khartan and Martan. Above Hâsek is a high mountain named Sous, which commands the sea. It is an inconsiderable town but populous.” This place is now in ruins, but has left its name to the promontory on which it stood [Râs Hâsek, lat. 17° 23´ N. long. 55° 20´ E. opposite the island of Hasiki]. The islands of Zenobios are mentioned by Ptolemy as seven in number, and are those called by Edrisi Khartan and Martan, now known as the Kuriyân Muriyân islands. The inhabitants belonged to an Arab tribe which was spread from Hâsek to Râs-el-Ḥad, and was called Beit or Beni Jenabi, whence the Greek name. M. Polo in the 31st chapter of his travels “discourseth of the two islands called Male and Female,” the position of which he vaguely indicates by saying that “when you leave the kingdom of Kesmacoran (Mekran) which is on the mainland, you go by sea some 500 miles towards the south, and then you find the 2 islands Male and Female lying about 30 miles distant from one another.” (See also Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 396 note.)

Beyond Asikh is a district inhabited by barbarians, and subject not to Arabia but to Persis. Then succeeds at a distance of 200 stadia beyond the islands of Zenobios the island of Sarapis, (the Ogyris of Pliny) now called Masira [lat. 20° 10´ to 20° 42´ N., long. 58° 37´ to 58° 59´ E.] opposite that part of the coast where Oman now begins. The Periplûs exaggerates both its breadth and its distance from the continent. It was still inhabited by a tribe of fish-eaters in the time of Ebn Batuta, by whom it was visited.

On proceeding from Sarapis the adjacent coast bends round, and the direction of the voyage changes to north. The great cape which forms the south-eastern extremity of Arabia called Ras-el-Had [lat. 22° 33´ N. long. 59° 48´ E.] is here indicated, but without being named; Ptolemy calls it Korodamon (VI. vii. 11.)

34. If sailing onward you wind round with the adjacent coast to the north, then as you approach the entrance of the Persian Gulf you fall in with a group of islands which lie in a range along the coast for 2,000 stadia, and are called the islands of Kalaiou. The inhabitants of the adjacent coast are cruel and treacherous, and see imperfectly in the daytime.

(34) Beyond it, and near the entrance to the Persian Gulf, occurs, according to the Periplûs, a group of many islands, which lie in a range along the coast over a space of 2,000 stadia, and are called the islands of Kalaiou. Here our author is obviously in error, for there are but three groups of islands on this coast, which are not by any means near the entrance of the Gulf. They lie beyond Maskat [lat. 23° 38´ N. long. 58° 36´ E.] and extend for a considerable distance along the Batinah coast. The central group is that of the Deymâniyeh islands (probably the Damnia of Pliny) which are seven in number, and lie nearly opposite Birkeh [lat 23° 42´ N. long. 57° 55´ E.]. The error, as Müller suggests, may be accounted for by supposing that the tract of country called El Baṭinah was mistaken for islands. This tract, which is very low and extremely fertile, stretches from Birkeh [lat. 23° 42´ N. long. 57° 55´ E.] onward to Jibba, where high mountains approach the very shore, and run on in an unbroken chain to the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The islands are not mentioned by any other author, for the Calacou insulae of Pliny (VI. xxxii. 150) must, to avoid utter confusion, be referred to the coast of the Arabian Gulf. There is a place called El Kilat, the Akilla of Pliny [lat. 22° 40´ N. long. 59° 24´ E.]—but whether this is connected with the Kalaiou islands of the Periplûs is uncertain [Conf. Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 48. El Kilhat, south of Maskat and close to Ṣûr, was once a great port.]

35. Near the last headland of the islands of Kalaiou is the mountain called Kalon (Pulcher),[20] to which succeeds, at no great distance, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where there are very many pearl fisheries. On the left of the entrance, towering to a vast height, are the mountains which bear the name of Asaboi, and directly opposite on the right you see another mountain high and round, called the hill of Semiramis. The strait which separates them has a width of 600 stadia, and through this opening the Persian Gulf pours its vast expanse of waters far up into the interior. At the very head of this gulf there is a regular mart of commerce, called the city of Apologos, situate near Pasinou-Kharax and the river Euphrates.

(35) Before the mouth of the Persian Gulf is reached occurs a height called Kalon (Fair Mount) at the last head of the islands of Papias—τῶν Παπίου νήσων. This reading has been altered by Fabricius and Schwanbeck to των Καλαιου νησων. The Fair Mount, according to Vincent, would answer sufficiently to Cape Fillam, if that be high land, and not far from Fillam are the straits. The great cape which Arabia protrudes at these straits towards Karmania is now called Ras Mussendom. It was seen from the opposite coast by the expedition under Nearkhos, to whom it appeared to be a day’s sail distant. The height on that coast is called Semiramis, and also Strongylê from its round shape. Mussendom, the ‘Asabôn akron’ of Ptolemy, Vincent says, “is a sort of Lizard Point to the Gulf; for all the Arabian ships take their departure from it with some ceremonies of superstition, imploring a blessing on their voyage, and setting afloat a toy like a vessel rigged and decorated, which if it is dashed to pieces by the rocks is to be accepted by the ocean as an offering for the escape of the vessel.” [The straits between the island of Mussendom and the mainland are called El Bab, and this is the origin of the name of the Papiæ islands.—Miles’ Jour. R. A. Soc. N. S. vol. x. p. 168.]

The actual width of the straits is 40 miles. Pliny gives it at 50, and the Periplûs at 75. Cape Mussendom is represented in the Periplûs as in Ptolemy by the Mountains of the Asabi which are described as tremendous heights, black, grim, and abrupt. They are named from the tribe of Beni Asab.

We enter now the Gulf itself, and here the Periplûs mentions only two particulars: the famous Pearl Fisheries which begin at the straits and extend to Bahrein, and the situation of a regular trading mart called Apologos, which lies at the very head of the Gulf on the Euphrates, and in the vicinity of Spasinou Kharax. This place does not appear to be referred to in any other classical work, but it is frequently mentioned by Arabian writers under the name of Oboleh or Obolegh. As an emporium it took the place of Terêdôn or Diridôtis, just as Basra (below which it was situated) under the second Khaliphate took the place of Oboleh itself. According to Vincent, Oboleh, or a village that represents it, still exists between Basra and the Euphrates. The canal also is called the canal of Oboleh. Kharax Pasinou was situated where the Karûn (the Eulæus of the ancients) flows into the Pasitigris, and is represented by the modern trading town Muhammarah. It was founded by Alexander the Great, and after its destruction, was rebuilt by Antiokhos Epiphanes, who changed its name from Alexandreia to Antiokheia. It was afterwards occupied by an Arab Chief called Pasines, or rather Spasines, who gave it the name by which it is best known. Pliny states that the original town was only 10 miles from the sea, but that in his time the existing place was so much as 120 miles from it. It was the birth-place of two eminent geographers—Dionysius Periegetes and Isidôros.