In former years the market was abundantly
stocked; the numbers annually shipped to Mocha, Hodaydah, Jeddah, and
Berberah, varied from 600 to 1000. The Hajj received as duty one gold
"Kirsh," or about three fourths of a dollar, per head.
[29] Zayla, called Audal or Auzal by the Somal, is a town about the size
of Suez, built for 3000 or 4000 inhabitants, and containing a dozen large
whitewashed stone houses, and upwards of 200 Arish or thatched huts, each
surrounded by a fence of wattle and matting. The situation is a low and
level spit of sand, which high tides make almost an island. There is no
Harbour: a vessel of 250 tons cannot approach within a mile of the
landing-place; the open roadstead is exposed to the terrible north wind,
and when gales blow from the west and south, it is almost unapproachable.
Every ebb leaves a sandy flat, extending half a mile seaward from the
town; the reefy anchorage is difficult of entrance after sunset, and the
coralline bottom renders wading painful.
The shape of this once celebrated town is a tolerably regular
parallelogram, of which the long sides run from east to west. The walls,
without guns or embrasures, are built, like the houses, of coralline
rubble and mud, in places dilapidated. There are five gates. The Bab el
Sahil and the Bab el Jadd (a new postern) open upon the sea from the
northern wall. At the Ashurbara, in the southern part of the enceinte, the
Bedouins encamp, and above it the governor holds his Durbar. The Bab Abd
el Kadir derives its name from a saint buried outside and eastward of the
city, and the Bab el Saghir is pierced in the western wall.
The public edifices are six mosques, including the Jami, or cathedral, for
Friday prayer: these buildings have queer little crenelles on whitewashed
walls, and a kind of elevated summer-house to represent the minaret. Near
one of them are remains of a circular Turkish Munar, manifestly of modern
construction. There is no Mahkamah or Kazi's court; that dignitary
transacts business at his own house, and the Festival prayers are recited
near the Saint's Tomb outside the eastern gate. The northeast angle of the
town is occupied by a large graveyard with the usual deleterious
consequences.
The climate of Zayla is cooler than that of Aden, and, the site being open
all around, it is not so unhealthy. Much spare room is enclosed by the
town walls: evaporation and Nature's scavengers act succedanea for
sewerage.
Zayla commands the adjacent harbour of Tajurrah, and is by position the
northern port of Aussa (the ancient capital of Adel), of Harar, and of
southern Abyssinia: the feuds of the rulers have, however, transferred the
main trade to Berberah.
