We must take Benjamin's statements here to mean that the independent Jews who lived in the mountainous country in the rear of Aden crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and made war against the inhabitants of the Plains of Abyssinia. J. Lelewel, in a series of letters addressed to E. Carmoly, entitled Examen geographique des Voyages de Benjamin de Tudèle (Bruxelles, 1852), takes great pains to locate the land of Hommatum
in lieu of which our text reads
the land of the Plains; but he quite fails in this and in many other attempts at identification. The Jews coming from Aden had to encounter the forces of the Christian sovereign of Abyssinia, and sought safety in the mountainous regions of that country. Here they were heard of later under the name of Falasha Jews. Cf. Marco Polo, vol. III, chap. xxxv. The reader is referred to Colonel Yule's valuable notes to this chapter. He quotes Bruce's Abstract of Abyssinian Chronicles with regard to a Jewish dynasty which superseded the royal line in the tenth century. See also Dr. Charles Singer's interesting communication in J. Q. R., XVII, p. 142, and J. Halevy's Travels in Abyssinia (Miscellany of Hebrew Literature: 2nd Series, p. 175).
Assuan, according to Makrizi, was a most flourishing town prior to 1403, when more than 20,000 of its inhabitants perished. Seba cannot be identified. No doubt our author alludes to Seba, a name repeatedly coupled in Scripture with Egypt, Cush and Havilah.
Heluan is the present Helwan, fourteen miles from Cairo, which was greatly appreciated by the early Caliphs for its thermal sulphur springs. Stanley Lane Poole, in The Story of Cairo, p. 61, tells us of its edifices, and adds: "It is curious to consider how nearly this modern health-resort became the capital of Egypt." Heluan is situated on the right bank of the Nile. One would have thought that the caravans proceeding to the interior of Africa through the Sahara Desert would have started from the left bank of the Nile; but we must remember that ancient Memphis, which stood on the left bank and faced Heluan, had been abandoned long before Benjamin's time. Edrisi and Abulfeda confirm Benjamin's statement respecting Zawila or Zaouyla, which was the capital of Gana—the modern Fezzan—a large oasis in the Sahara Desert, south of Tripoli.