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.