[7]. Dos Santos calls the Commander ‘Muzimbas.’ Duarte Barbosa mentions sub voce Zimbaoche, a great village seven days’ journey from Benametapa. De Barros identifies it with the Ptolemeian Agyzimba, and describes it as a royal residence of the Emperor Benomotapa. It is the Zumbo of Dr Livingstone.
[8]. A plan of the Island was published by Rezende in 1635.
[9]. In the edition of Charles Muller (Paris, 1845) the word καίνης disappears, and the sentence becomes καὶ της λεγομένης διώρυχος, ‘and the so-called fosse.’ Certainly the term διῶρὺξ would suit the Mombasah Canal better than the Channel of Patta, and the former is the only ‘digging’ where human labour can possibly have been applied. Thus Pliny (v. 3) explains the name of the city Hippo Diarrhytus, ‘from the channels made for irrigation.’ That the scanty population of Arabs at ancient Mombasah was incapable of excavating a canal 600 metres long is no proof that the work was not done. The Sultan of Mombasah could bring into the field 5000 wild archers, and, similarly, in the Brazil the most astonishing works were effected by a handful of Portuguese, assisted by hordes of Tupy savages.
[10]. Owen (i. 404, 405) sketches and transcribes it very incorrectly. Guillain (vol. i., Appendix, p. 622) has done his work better. In vol. i., p. 442, however, he gives the name of the governor as ‘Sexas e Cabra’—the latter by no means complimentary.
[11]. Short account of Mombas and the neighbouring coast of Africa, by Lieut. Emery, R. N. Journal Royal Geographical Society, vol. iii. of 1854.
[12]. This may, however, be the pile spoken of by Boteler.
[13]. I made a sketch of it which was published in Dr Krapf’s Travels, chap. xiii. Rabai Mpia, ‘New Rabai,’ is thus distinguished from a neighbouring settlement, Rabai Khú or Kale, ‘old Rabai.’ According to M. Guillain (i. 247), the ‘Montagnes de Rabaye’ correspond with the ‘Alkerany’ of the geographer Ibn Saíd, who says, ‘East of Melinde is Alkerany, the name of a mountain very well known to travellers. This height projects into the sea for a distance of about 100 miles in a north-east direction; at the same time it extends along the Continent in a straight line, trending south for some 50 miles. Amongst the peculiarities of this mountain is the following: the continental portion contains an iron mine, which supplies all the country of the Zenj, besides being exported, and the part under the sea contains magnetic matter which attracts iron.’ Evidently ‘Alkerany’ belongs to the geography of El Sindibad of the Sea, better known as Sindbad the Sailor.
[14]. The route which follows seems to agree, as far as it goes, with the Rev. Mr Wakefield’s No. 3, from Mombasah to Dhaicho. I have not changed my notes, which still appear in my diary of 1857.
1. Mombasah viâ Mkupa to Rabai: 1 full day.
2. Kitakakai in the plains of the Wakamba: 1 day.