3. Below the Moskhophagoi, near the sea, lies a little trading town distant from Berenîkê about 4000 stadia, called Ptolemaïs Thêrôn, from which, in the days of the Ptolemies, the hunters employed by them used to go up into the interior to catch elephants. In this mart is procured the true (or marine) tortoise-shell, and the land kind also, which, however, is scarce, of a white colour, and smaller size. A little ivory is also sometimes obtainable, resembling that of Adouli. This place has no port, and is approachable only by boats.
(3) To the south of the Moskhophagoi lies Ptolemaïs Thêrôn, or, as it is called by Pliny, Ptolemaïs Epitheras. [On Er-rih island, lat. 18° 9´ N., long 38° 27´ E., are the ruins of an ancient town—probably Ptolemaïs Therôn—Müller however places Suche here.—Ptol. I. viii. 1.; IV. vii. 7; VIII. xvi. 10]. It was originally an Ethiopian village, but was extended and fortified by Ptolemy Philadelphos, who made it the depôt of the elephant trade, for which its situation on the skirts of the great Nubian forest, where these animals abounded, rendered it peculiarly suitable. The Egyptians before this had imported their elephants from Asia, but as the supply was precarious, and the cost of importation very great, Philadelphos made the most tempting offers to the Ethiopian elephant-hunters (Elephantophagoi) to induce them to abstain from eating the animal, or to reserve at least a portion of them for the royal stables. They rejected however all his solicitations, declaring that even for all Egypt they would not forego the luxury of their repast. The king resolved thereupon to procure his supplies by employing hunters of his own.
4. Leaving Ptolemaïs Thêrôn we are conducted, at the distance of about 3000 stadia, to Adouli, a regular and established port of trade situated on a deep bay the direction of which is due south. Facing this, at a distance seaward of about 200 stadia from the inmost recess of the bay, lies an island called Oreinê (or ‘the mountainous’), which runs on either side parallel with the mainland. Ships, that come to trade with Adouli, now-a-days anchor here, to avoid being attacked from the shore; for in former times when they used to anchor at the very head of the bay, beside an island called Diodôros, which was so close to land that the sea was fordable, the neighbouring barbarians, taking advantage of this, would run across to attack the ships at their moorings. At the distance of 20 stadia from the sea, opposite Oreinê, is the village of Adouli, which is not of any great size, and inland from this a three days’ journey is a city, Kolöê, the first market where ivory can be procured. From Kolöê it takes a journey of five days to reach the metropolis of the people called the Auxumitae, whereto is brought, through the province called Kyêneion, all the ivory obtained on the other side of the Nile, before it is sent on to Adouli. The whole mass, I may say, of the elephants and rhinoceroses which are killed to supply the trade frequent the uplands of the interior, though at rare times they are seen near the coast, even in the neighbourhood of Adouli. Besides the islands already mentioned, a cluster consisting of many small ones lies out in the sea to the right of this port. They bear the name of Alalaiou, and yield the tortoises with which the Ikhthyophagoi supply the market.
(4) Beyond Ptolemaïs Thêrôn occurs Adoulê, at a distance, according to the Periplûs, of 3000 stadia—a somewhat excessive estimate. The place is called also Adoulei and more commonly Adoulis by ancient writers (Ptol. IV. vii. 8; VIII. xvi. 11). It is represented by the modern Thulla or Zula [pronounced Azule,—lat. 15° 12´-15° 15´ N., long. 39° 36´ E.].—To the West of this, according to Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt, there are to be found the remains of an ancient city. It was situated on the Adoulikos Kolpos (Ptol. I. xv. 11.; IV. vii. 8), now called Annesley Bay, the best entrance into Abyssinia. It was erroneously placed by D’Anville at Dokhnau or Harkiko, close to Musawwâ [lat. 15° 35´ N.] There is much probability in the supposition that it was founded by a party of those Egyptians who, as we learn from Herodotos (II. 30), to the number of 240,000 fled from their country in the days of Psammêtikḥos (B. C. 671-617) and went to as great a distance beyond Meroë, the capital of Ethiopia, as Meroë is beyond Elephantinê. This is the account which Pliny (VI. 3-4) gives of its foundation, adding that it was the greatest emporium of the Troglodytes, and distant from Ptolemaïs a five days’ voyage, which by the ordinary reckoning is 2,500 stadia. It was an emporium for rhinoceros’ hides, ivory and tortoise-shell. It had not only a large sea-borne traffic, but was also a caravan station for the traffic of the interior of Africa. Under the Romans it was the haven of Auxumê (Ptol. IV. vii. 25,—written also Auxumis, Axumis), now Axum, the capital of the kingdom of Tigre in Abyssinia. Auxumê was the chief centre of the trade with the interior of Africa in gold-dust, ivory, leather, hides and aromatics. It was rising to great prosperity and power about the time the Periplûs was written, which is the earliest work extant in which it is mentioned. It was probably founded by the Egyptian exiles already referred to. Its remaining monuments are perfectly Egyptian and not pastoral, Troglodytik, Greek, or Arabian in their character. Its name at the same time retains traces of the term Asmak, by which, as we learn from Herodotos, those exiles were designated, and Heeren considers it to have been one of the numerous priest-colonies which were sent out from Meroë.
At Adouli was a celebrated monument, a throne of white marble with a slab of basanite stone behind it, both covered with Greek characters, which in the sixth century of our era were copied by Kosmas Indikopleustês. The passage in Kosmos relating to this begins thus: “Adulê is a city of Ethiopia and the port of communication with Axiômis, and the whole nation of which that city is the capital. In this port we carry on our trade from Alexandria and the Elanitik Gulf. The town itself is about a mile from the shore, and as you enter it on the Western side which leads from Axiômis, there is still remaining a chair or throne which appertained to one of the Ptolemys who had subjected this country to his authority.” The first portion of the inscription records that Ptolemy Euergetês (247-222 B.C.) received from the Troglodyte Arabs and Ethiopians certain elephants which his father, the second king of the Makedonian dynasty, and himself had taken in hunting in the region of Adulê and trained to war in their own kingdom. The second portion of the inscription commemorates the conquests of an anonymous Ethiopian king in Arabia and Ethiopia as far as the frontier of Egypt. Adouli, it is known for certain, received its name from a tribe so designated which formed a part of the Danakil shepherds who are still found in the neighbourhood of Annesley Bay, in the island of Diset [lat. 15° 28´, long. 30° 45´, the Diodôros perhaps of the Periplûs] opposite which is the town or station of Masawâ (anc. Saba) [lat. 15° 37´ N., long. 39° 28´ E.], and also in the archipelago of Dhalak, called in the Periplûs, the islands of Alalaiou. The merchants of Egypt, we learn from the work, first traded at Masawwâ but afterwards removed to Oreinê for security. This is an islet in the south of the Bay of Masawwâ, lying 20 miles from the coast; it is a rock as its name imports, and is of considerable elevation.
Aduli being the best entrance into Abyssinia, came prominently into notice during the late Abyssinian war. Beke thus speaks of it, “In our recent visit to Abyssinia I saw quite enough to confirm the opinion I have so long entertained, that when the ancient Greeks founded Adule or Adulis at the mouth of the river Hadâs, now only a river bed except during the rains, though a short way above there is rain all the year round, they knew that they possessed one of the keys of Abyssinia.”
5. Below Adouli, about 800 stadia, occurs another very deep bay, at the entrance of which on the right are vast accumulations of sand, wherein is found deeply embedded the Opsian stone, which is not obtainable anywhere else. The king of all this country, from the Moskhophagoi to the other end of Barbaria, is Zôskalês, a man at once of penurious habits and of a grasping disposition, but otherwise honourable in his dealings and instructed in the Greek language.
(5) At a distance of about 100 miles beyond Adouli the coast is indented by another bay now known as Hanfelah bay [near Râs Hanfelah in lat. 14° 44´, long. 40° 49´ E.] about 100 miles from Annesley Bay and opposite an island called Daramsas or Hanfelah. It has wells of good water and a small lake of fresh water after the rains; the coast is inhabited by the Dummoeta, a tribe of the Danakil. This is the locality where, and where only, the Opsian or Obsidian stone was to be found. Pliny calls it an unknown bay, because traders making for the ports of Arabia passed it by without deviating from their course to enter it. He was aware, as well as our author, that it contained the Opsian stone, of which he gives an account, already produced in the introduction.
6. These articles which these places import are the following:—
Ἱμάτια βαρβαρικα, ἄγναφα τὰ ἐν Ἀιγύπτω γινόμενα—Cloth undressed, of Egyptian manufacture, for the Barbarian market.
Στολὰι Ἀρσινοητικὰι—Robes manufactured at Arsinoê.