+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.