Note 10 — Chapter II · ARRIVAL AT ZANZIBAR ISLAND.

De Barros by a slip of the pen writes (Decades i. 5, 9) Guadrafu. I should explain the corrupted ‘Guardafui’ not as usual by ‘Cabo d’Orfui,’ but as a European version of Jurd Hafun,—highland or crest of Hafun. Jurd, in Arabic, means the mountain-top, opposed to the Wusut, shoulders or half-way slopes, and to the Sahl, or low lands. The modern Arabic name of the ancient Aromata Promontarium is Ra’as Asir, the captive headland, a term especially applied to the projection of land, some 2000 feet high, which, viewed from the south, extends farthest seaward to the north-east, as I saw when sailing from Zanzibar to Aden. Hafun, supposed to be the Mosyllum Promontorium of Pliny and the Opone of Ptolemy, the Khakhui of El Idrisi; the Jafuni of El Masudi; the Carfuna of other Arab geographers, and the Orfui of the moderns, means the surrounded, i.e. by water, because almost an island. Lieutenant Crittenden, I.N. (Aden, April 10, 1848. Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society), describes it as a headland of lime and sandstone nearly square, and 600 to 700 feet high. He remarks that after the Elephas Mons it is the only point on the coast concerning which there can be no mistake. The sites are thus—

Ras Asir (Guardaful) North Easternmost point of Africa N.lat. 11° 50′ 0″ Raper (11° 4′ 4″ Norris)

Ras Hafun, Easternmost point of Africa N.lat. 10° 26′ 48″ " (10° 27′ 48″ ″ )

Difference 1° 23′ 52″ 1° 13′ 16″

Lieutenant Carless, I.N., makes the difference of meridian arc 0° 4′ 50″