21 0 58 0
Swakem, 17 0 58 0
Aden, 11 0 66 0
Borders of Yaman, 19 0 67 0
Jiddah, 21 0 66 0
Jahafah, 22 0 65 0
Yamboa, 26 0 64 0
Aylah, 29 0 55 0
- - 28 50 56 40
[Footnote 346: The longitude is reckoned by Abulfeda from the most
western shores on the Atlantic Ocean, at the pillars of Hercules;
supposed to be 10 deg. E. of the Fuzair al Khaladat, or the Fortunate
Islands. - Ast. I. 134.
These latitudes and longitudes are so exceedingly erroneous as to defy
all useful criticism, and are therefore left as in the collection of
Astley without any commentary; indeed the whole of this extract from
Abulfeda is of no manner of use, except as a curiosity. - E.]
POSTSCRIPT.-Transactions of the Portuguese in Abyssinia, under Don
Christopher de Gama[347].
While the Portuguese fleet was at Massua, between the 22d of May and
9th of July 1541, a considerable detachment of soldiers was landed at
Arkiko on the coast of Abyssinia under the command of Don Christopher de
Gama, brother to the governor-general, for the assistance of the
Christian sovereign of the Abyssinians against Grada Hamed king of Adel
or Zeyla, an Arab sovereignty at the north-eastern point of Africa,
without the Red Sea, and to the south of Abyssinia. In the journal of
Don Juan de Castro; this force is stated at 500 men, while in the
following notices from De Faria, 400 men are said to have formed the
whole number of auxiliaries furnished by the Portuguese[348]. This
account of the first interference of the Portuguese in the affairs of
Abyssinia by De Faria, is rather meagre and unsatisfactory, and the
names of places are often so disguised by faulty orthography as to be
scarcely intelligible. In a future division of our work more ample
accounts will be given both of this Portuguese expedition, and of other
matters respecting Abyssinia. - E.
[Footnote 347: From the Portuguese Asia of De Faria, II. 24.]
[Footnote 348: In an account of this expedition of the Portuguese into
Abyssinia, by the Catholic Patriarch, Juan Bermudez, who accompanied
them, this difference of the number of men is partly accounted for.
According to Bermudez, the force was 400 men, among whom were many
gentlemen and persons of note, who carried servants along with them,
which increased the number considerably. - E.]
* * * * *
Some time before the expedition of De Gama into the Red Sea, Grada Hamed
the Mahometan king of Adel or Zeyla, the country called Trogloditis by
some geographers, submitted himself to the supremacy of the Turkish
empire in order to obtain some assistance of men, and throwing off his
allegiance to the Christian emperor of Abyssinia or Ethiopia,
immediately invaded that country with a numerous and powerful army. On
this occasion he took advantage offered by the sovereign of Abyssinia,
to whom he owed allegiance, being in extreme youth, and made such
progress in the country that the emperor Atanad Sagad, otherwise named
Claudius, was obliged to retire into the kingdom or province of Gojam,
while his mother, Saban or Elizabeth, who administered the
government in his minority, took refuge with the Baharnagash in the
rugged mountains of Dama, a place naturally impregnable, which rising
to a prodigious height from a large plain, has a plain on its summit
about a league in diameter, on which is an indifferent town with
sufficient cattle and other provisions for its scanty population.
