[3] The Arabs were probably the earliest colonists of this coast. Even the
Sawahil people retain a tradition that their forefathers originated in the
south of Arabia.
[4] To the present day the district of Gozi is peopled by Mohammedans
called Arablet, "whose progenitors," according to Harris, "are said by
tradition to have been left there prior to the reign of Nagasi, first King
of Shoa. Hossain, Wahabit, and Abdool Kurreem, generals probably detached
from the victorious army of Graan (Mohammed Gragne), are represented to
have come from Mecca, and to have taken possession of the country,--the
legend assigning to the first of these warriors as his capital, the
populous village of Medina, which is conspicuous on a cone among the
mountains, shortly after entering the valley of Robi."
[5] Historia Regum Islamiticorum in Abyssinia, Lugd. Bat. 1790. [6] The
affinity between the Somal and the Berbers of Northern Africa, and their
descent from Canaan, son of Ham, has been learnedly advanced and refuted
by several Moslem authors. The theory appears to have arisen from a
mistake; Berberah, the great emporium of the Somali country, being
confounded with the Berbers of Nubia.
[7] Probably Zaidi from Yemen. At present the people of Zayla are all
orthodox Sunnites.
[8] Fish, as will be seen in these pages, is no longer a favourite article
of diet.
[9] Bruce, book 8.
[10] Hence the origin of the trade between Africa and Cutch, which
continues uninterrupted to the present time. Adel, Arabia, and India, as
Bruce remarks, were three partners in one trade, who mutually exported
their produce to Europe, Asia, and Africa, at that time the whole known
world.
[11] The Turks, under a show of protecting commerce, established these
posts in their different ports. But they soon made it appear that the end
proposed was only to ascertain who were the subjects from whom they could
levy the most enormous extortions. Jeddah, Zebid, and Mocha, the places of
consequence nearest to Abyssinia on the Arabian coast, Suakin, a seaport
town on the very barriers of Abyssinia, in the immediate way of their
caravan to Cairo on the African side, were each under the command of a
Turkish Pasha and garrisoned by Turkish troops sent thither from
Constantinople by the emperors Selim and Sulayman.
[12] Bartema's account of its productions is as follows: "The soil beareth
wheat and hath abundance of flesh and divers other commodious things. It
hath also oil, not of olives, but of some other thing, I know not what.
There is also plenty of honey and wax; there are likewise certain sheep
having their tails of the weight of sixteen pounds, and exceeding fat; the
head and neck are black, and all the rest white. There are also sheep
altogether white, and having tails of a cubit long, and hanging down like
a great cluster of grapes, and have also great laps of skin hanging down
from their throats, as have bulls and oxen, hanging down almost to the
ground.
