Note {3} — Chapter XXXV

Note 3.—It is pretty clear from what follows (as Marsden and others have noted) that the narrative requires us to conceive of the Sultan of Aden as dominant over the territory between Abyssinia and the sea, or what was in former days called Adel, between which and Aden confusion seems to have been made. I have noticed in Note 1 the appearance of this confusion in R. Benjamin; and I may add that also in the Map of Marino Sanudo Aden is represented on the western shore of the Red Sea. But is it not possible that in the origin of the Mahomedan States of Adel the Sultan of Aden had some power over them? For we find in the account of the correspondence between the King of Abyssinia and Sultan Bibars, quoted in the next Note but one, that the Abyssinian letters and presents for Egypt were sent to the Sultan of Yemen or Aden to be forwarded.