His Geography
Written In 721, A.D. 1321, Consists Of Tables Of The Latitudes And
Longitudes Of Places, In Imitation Of Ptolemy, With Descriptions, Under
The Title Of Takwin Al Boldan.
No fewer than five or six translations
have been made of this work, but by some accident or other none of these
have ever been published.
The only parts of this work that have been
printed are the tables of Send and Hend, or India, published in the
French collection of Voyages and Travels by Thevenot; and those of
Khowarazm or Karazm, Mawara'l-nahar, or Great Bukharia, and Arabia.
The two former were published in 1650, with a Latin translation by Dr
Greaves; and all the three by Hudson, in the third volume of the Lesser
Greek Geographers, in 1712; from which latter work this description of
the Red Sea is extracted, on purpose to illustrate the two preceding
journals, and to shew that there really is such a gulf on the coast of
Arabia as that mentioned by the ancients, that geographers may not be
misled by the mistake of Don Juan de Castro. In this edition, the words
inserted between parenthesis are added on purpose to accommodate the
names to the English orthography, or to make the description more
strictly conformable to the Arabic. The situations or geographical
positions are here thrown out of the text, to avoid embarrassment, and
formed into a table at the end. We cannot however warrant any of them,
as those which may have been settled by actual observation are not
distinguished from such as may not have had that advantage; which indeed
is the general fault of oriental tables of latitude and longitude. The
latitude of Al Kossir comes pretty near that formed by Don Juan de
Castro; but that of Al Kolzum must err above one degree, while that of
Swakem is more than two degrees erroneous. - Ast.
[Footnote 338: Astley, I. 130. We have adopted this article from Astleys
Collection, that nothing useful or curious may be omitted. In the
present time, when the trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope is about to be
thrown open, it might be highly useful to publish a series of Charts of
all the coasts and islands of the great Eastern Ocean; and among others,
a Chart of the Red Sea, with a dissertation on its geography and
navigation, might be made of singular interest and utility. - E.]
[Footnote 339: See Gagnier's preface to the life of Mahomet by
Abu'lfeda; and the preface of Shulten to that of Saladin - Astl. I. 130.
d.]
The author begins his description of the sea of Kolzum or of Yaman
at Al Kolzum[340], a small city at the north end of this sea; which
from thence runs south, inclining a little towards the east, as far as
al Kasir (al Kossir) the port of Kus[341]. Hence it continues its
course south, bending somewhat westward to about Aidab (Aydhab[342].)
The coast passes afterwards directly south to Sawakan (Swakem), a
small city in the land of the blacks, (or al Sudan). Proceeding thence
south, it encompasses the island of Dahlak, which is not far from the
western shore.
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