16. At the distance of a two days’ sail from this island lies the last of the marts of Azania, called Rhapta, a name which it derives from the sewn boats just mentioned. Ivory is procured here in the greatest abundance, and also turtle. The indigenous inhabitants are men of huge stature, who live apart from each other, every man ruling like a lord his own domain. The whole territory is governed by the despot of Mopharitis, because the sovereignty over it, by some right of old standing, is vested in the kingdom of what is called the First Arabia. The merchants of Mouza farm its revenues from the king, and employ in trading with it a great many ships of heavy burden, on board of which they have Arabian commanders and factors who are intimately acquainted with the natives and have contracted marriage with them, and know their language and the navigation of the coast.
(16) We arrive next and finally at Rhapta, the last emporium on the coast known to the author. Ptolemy mentions not only a city of this name, but also a river and a promontory. The name is Greek (from ῥάπτειν, to sew), and was applied to the place because the vessels there in use were raised from bottoms consisting of single trunks of trees by the addition of planks which were sewn together with the fibres of the cocoa. “It is a singular fact,” as Vincent remarks, “that this peculiarity should be one of the first objects which attracted the attention of the Portuguese upon their reaching this coast. They saw them first at Mozambique, where they were called Almeidas, but the principal notice of them in most of their writers is generally stated at Kilwa, the very spot which we have supposed to receive its name from vessels of the same construction.” Vincent has been led from this coincidence to identify Rhapta with Kilwa [lat. 8° 50´ S.]. Müller however would place it not so far south, but somewhere in the Bay of Zangibar. The promontory of Rhaptum, he judges from the indications of the Periplûs to be the projection which closes the bay in which lies the island of Zangibar, and which is now known as Moinanokalû or Point Pouna, lat. 7° S. The parts beyond this were unknown, and the southern coast of Africa, it was accordingly thought by the ancient geographers, began here. Another cape however is mentioned by Ptolemy remoter than Rhaptum and called Prasum (that is the Green Cape) which may perhaps be Cape Delgado, which is noted for its luxuriant vegetation. The same author calls the people of Rhapta, the Rhapsioi Aithiopes. They are described in the Periplûs as men of lofty stature, and this is still a characteristic of the Africans of this coast. The Rhapsii were, in the days of our author, subject to the people of Mouza in Arabia just as their descendants are at the present day subject to the Sultan of Maskat. Their commerce moreover still maintains its ancient characteristics. It is the African who still builds and mans the ships while the Arab is the navigator and supercargo. The ivory is still of inferior quality, and the turtle is still captured at certain parts of the coast.
17. The articles imported into these marts are principally javelins manufactured at Mouza, hatchets, knives, awls, and crown glass of various sorts, to which must be added corn and wine in no small quantity landed at particular ports, not for sale, but to entertain and thereby conciliate the barbarians. The articles which these places export are ivory, in great abundance but of inferior quality to that obtained at Adouli, rhinoceros, and tortoise-shell of fine quality, second only to the Indian, and a little nauplius.
18. These marts, we may say, are about the last on the coast of Azania—the coast, that is, which is on your right as you sail south from Berenîkê. For beyond these parts an ocean, hitherto unexplored, curves round towards sunset, and, stretching along the southern extremities of Ethiopia, Libya, and Africa, amalgamates with the Western Sea.
19. To the left, again, of Berenikê, if you sail eastward from Myos-Hormos across the adjacent gulf for two days, or perhaps three, you arrive at a place having a port and a fortress which is called Leukê Kômê, and forming the point of communication with Petra, the residence of Malikhas, the king of the Nabatæans. It ranks as an emporium of trade, since small vessels come to it laden with merchandize from Arabia; and hence an officer is deputed to collect the duties which are levied on imports at the rate of twenty-five per cent. of their value, and also a centurion who commands the garrison by which the place is protected.
(18, 19) Our author having thus described the African coast as far southward as it was known on its Eastern side, reverts to Berenikê and enters at once on a narrative of the second voyage—that which was made thence across the Northern head of the gulf and along the coast of Arabia to the emporium of Mouza near the Straits. The course is first northward, and the parts about Berenikê as you bear away lie therefore now on your left hand. Having touched at Myos Hormos the course on leaving it is shaped eastward across the gulf by the promontory Pharan, and Leukê Kômê[19] is reached after three or four days’ sailing. This was a port in the kingdom of the Nabathæans (the Nebaioth of Scripture), situated perhaps near the mouth of the Elanitic Gulf or eastern arm of the Red Sea, now called the Gulf of Akabah. Much difference of opinion has prevailed as to its exact position, since the encroachment of the land upon the sea has much altered the line of coast here. Mannert identified it with the modern Yenbo [lat. 24° 5´ N., long. 38° 3´ E., the port of Medina], Gosselin with Mowilah [lat. 27° 38´ N., long. 35° 28´ E.,] Vincent with Eynounah [lat. 28° 3´ N., long. 35° 13´ E.—the Onne of Ptolemy], Reichhard with Istabel Antai, and Rüppel with Wejh [lat. 26° 13´ N., long. 36° 27´ E]. Müller prefers the opinion held by Bochart, D’Anville, Quatremêre, Noel des Vergers, and Ritter, who agree in placing it at the port called Hauara [lat. 24° 59´ N., long. 37° 16´ E.] mentioned by Idrisi (I. p. 332), who describes it as a village inhabited by merchants carrying on a considerable trade in earthen vases manufactured at a clay-pit in their neighbourhood. Near it lies the island of Hassani [lat. 24° 59´ N., long. 37° 3´ E.], which, as Wellsted reports, is conspicuous from its white appearance. Leukê Kômê is mentioned by various ancient authors, as for instance Strabo, who, in a passage wherein he recounts the misfortunes which befel the expedition which Aelius led into Nabathaea, speaks of the place as a large mart to which and from which the camel traders travel with ease and in safety from Petra and back to Petra with so large a body of men and camels as to differ in no respect from an army.
The merchandize thus conveyed from Leukê Kômê to Petra was passed on to Rhinokoloura in Palestine near Egypt, and thence to other nations, but in his own time the greater part was transported by the Nile to Alexandria. It was brought down from India and Arabia to Myos Hormos, whence it was first conveyed on camels to Koptos and thence by the Nile to Alexandria. The Nabathaean king, at the time when our author visited Leukê Kômê, was, as he tells us, Malikhas, a name which means ‘king.’ Two Petraean sovereigns so called are mentioned by Josêphos, of whom the latter was contemporary with Herod. The Malikhas of the Periplûs is however not mentioned in any other work. The Nabathaean kingdom was subverted in the time of Trajan, A.D. 105, us we learn from Dio Cassius (cap. lxviii. 14), and from Eutropius (viii. 2, 9), and from Ammianus Marcellinus (xiv. 8).
20. Beyond this mart, and quite contiguous to it, is the realm of Arabia, which stretches to a great distance along the coast of the Red Sea. It is inhabited by various tribes, some speaking the same language with a certain degree of uniformity, and others a language totally different. Here also, as on the opposite continent, the sea-board is occupied by Ikhthyophagoi, who live in dispersed huts; while the men of the interior live either in villages, or where pasture can be found, and are an evil race of men, speaking two different languages. If a vessel is driven from her course upon this shore she is plundered, and if wrecked the crew on escaping to land are reduced to slavery. For this reason they are treated as enemies and captured by the chiefs and kings of Arabia. They are called Kanraîtai. Altogether, therefore, the navigation of this part of the Arabian coast is very dangerous: for, apart from the barbarity of its people, it has neither harbours nor good roadsteads, and it is foul with breakers, and girdled with rocks which render it inaccessible. For this reason when sailing south we stand off from a shore in every way so dreadful, and keep our course down the middle of the gulf, straining our utmost to reach the more civilized part of Arabia, which begins at Burnt Island. From this onward the people are under a regular government, and, as their country is pastoral, they keep herds of cattle and camels.
(20) At no great distance from Leukê Kômê the Nabathaean realm terminates and Arabia begins. The coast is here described as most dismal, and as in every way dangerous to navigation. The inhabitants at the same time are barbarians, destitute of all humanity, who scruple not to attack and plunder wrecked ships and to make slaves of their crews if they escaped to land. The mariner therefore, shunned these inhospitable shores, and standing well out to sea, sailed down the middle of the gulf. The tribe here spoken of was that perhaps which is represented by the Hutemi of the present day, and the coast belonged to the part of Arabia now called Hejid.
A more civilized region begins at an island called Burnt island, which answers to the modern Zebâyir [about lat. 15° 5´ N., long. 42° 12´ E.], an island which was till recently volcanic.
21. Beyond this tract, and on the shore of a bay which occurs at the termination of the left (or east) side of the gulf, is Mouza, an established and notable mart of trade, at a distance south from Berenikê of not more than 12,000 stadia. The whole place is full of Arabian shipmasters and common sailors, and is absorbed in the pursuits of commerce, for with ships of its own fitting out, it trades with the marts beyond the Straits on the opposite coast, and also with Barugaza.