GUARDAFUI, CAPE, n.p. The eastern horn of Africa, pointing towards India. We have the name from the Portuguese, and it has been alleged to have been so called by them as meaning, 'Take you heed!' (Gardez-vous, in fact.) But this is etymology of the species that so confidently derives 'Bombay' from Boa Bahia. Bruce, again (see below), gives dogmatically an interpretation which is equally unfounded. We must look to history, and not to the 'moral consciousness' of anybody. The country adjoining this horn of Africa, the Regio Aromatum of the ancients, seems to have been called by the Arabs Hafūn, a name which we find in the Periplus in the shape of Opōnē. This name Hafūn was applied to a town, no doubt the true Opōnē, which Barbosa (1516) mentions under the name of Afuni, and it still survives in those of two remarkable promontories, viz. the Peninsula of Rās Hafūn (the Chersonnesus of the Periplus, the Zingis of Ptolemy, the Cape d'Affui and d'Orfui of old maps and nautical directories), and the cape of Jard-Hafūn (or according to the Egyptian pronunciation, Gard-Hafūn), i.e. Guardafui. The nearest possible meaning of jard that we can find is 'a wide or spacious tract of land without herbage.' Sir R. Burton (Commentary on Camõens, iv. 489) interprets jard as = Bay, "from a break in the dreadful granite wall, lately provided by Egypt with a lighthouse." The last statement is unfortunately an error. The intended light seems as far off as ever. [There is still no lighthouse, and shipowners differ as to its advantage; see answer by Secretary of State, in House of Commons, Times, March 14, 1902.] We cannot judge of the ground of his interpretation of jard.

An attempt has been made to connect the name Hafūn with the Arabic af'a, 'pleasant odours.' It would then be the equivalent of the ancient Reg. Aromatum. This is tempting, but very questionable. We should have mentioned that Guardafui is the site of the mart and Promontory of the Spices described by the author of the Periplus as the furthest point and abrupt termination of the continent of Barbarice (or eastern Africa), towards the Orient (τὸ τῶν Ἀρωματών ἐμπόριον καὶ ἀκρωτήριον τελευταῖον τῆς βαρβαρικῆς ἠπείρου πρὸς ἀνατολὴν ἀποκόπον).

According to C. Müller our Guardafui is called by the natives Rās Aser; their Rās Jardafūn being a point some 12 m. to the south, which on some charts is called Rās Shenarif, and which is also the Τάβαι of the Periplus (Geog. Gr. Minores, i. 263).

1516.—"And that the said ships from his ports (K. of Coulam's) shall not go inwards from the Strait and Cape of Guoardaffuy, nor go to Adem, except when employed in our obedience and service ... and if any vessel or Zambuque is found inward of the Cape of Guoardaffuy it shall be taken as good prize of war."—Treaty between Lopo Soares and the K. of Caulam, in Botelho, Tombo, 33.

" "After passing this place (Afuni) the next after it is Cape Guardafun, where the coast ends, and trends so as to double towards the Red Sea."—Barbosa, 16.

c. 1530.—"This province, called of late Arabia, but which the ancients called Trogloditica, begins at the Red Sea and the country of the Abissines, and finishes at Magadasso ... others say it extends only to the Cape of Guardafuni."—Sommario de' Regni, in Ramusio, i. f. 325.

1553.—"Vicente Sodre, being despatched by the King, touched at the Island of Çocotora, where he took in water, and thence passed to the Cape of Guardafu, which is the most easterly land of Africa."—De Barros, I. vii. cap. 2.

1554.—"If you leave Dábúl at the end of the season, you direct yourselves W.S.W. till the pole is four inches and an eighth, from thence true west to Kardafún."—Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, The Mohit, in J. As. Soc. Ben., v. 464.

" "You find such whirlpools on the coasts of Kardafūn...."—The same, in his narrative, Journ. As. ser. 1. tom. ix. p. 77.

1572.—