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.
