(24) Adjacent to the Homeritai, and subject to them when the Periplûs was written, were the Sabæans, so famous in antiquity for their wealth, luxury and magnificence. Their country, the Sheba of Scripture, was noted as the land of frankincense. Their power at one time extended far and wide, but in the days of our author they were subject to the Homerites ruled over by Kharibaêl, who was assiduous in courting the friendship of Rome.
25. If on proceeding from Mouza you sail by the coast for about a distance of 300 stadia, there occurs, where the Arabian mainland and the opposite coast of Barbaria at Aualitês now approach each other, a channel of no great length which contracts the sea and encloses it within narrow bounds. This is 60 stadia wide, and in crossing it you come midway upon the island of Diodôros, to which it is owing that the passage of the straits is in its neighbourhood exposed to violent winds which blow down from the adjacent mountains. There is situate upon the shore of the straits an Arabian village subject to the same ruler (as Mouza), Okêlis by name, which is not so much a mart of commerce as a place for anchorage and supplying water, and where those who are bound for the interior first land and halt to refresh themselves.
(25) At a distance of 300 stadia beyond Mouza we reach the straits where the shores of Arabia and Africa advance so near to each other that the passage between them has only, according to the Periplûs, a width of 60 stadia, or 7½ miles. In the midst of the passage lies the island of Diodôros (now Perim), which is about 4½ miles long by 2 broad, and rises 230 feet above the level of the sea. The straits, according to Moresby, are 14½ geographical miles wide at the entrance between Bab-el-Mandab Cape (near which is Perim) and the opposite point or volcanic peak called Jibel Sijan. The larger of the two entrances is 11 miles wide, and the other only 1½. Strabo, Agathêmeros, and Pliny all agree with the Periplûs in giving 60 stadia as the breadth of the straits. The first passage of those dreaded straits was regarded as a great achievement, and was naturally ascribed to Sesostris as the voyage though the straits of Kalpê was ascribed to Heraklês.
Situated on the shores of the straits was a place called Okêlis. This was not a mart of commerce, but merely a bay with good anchorage and well supplied with water. It is identical with the modern Ghalla or Cella, which has a bay immediately within the straits. Strabo following Artemidoros notes here a promontory called Akila. Pliny (VI. xxxii. 157) mentions an emporium of the same name “ex quo in Indiam navigatur.” In xxvi., 104 of the same Book he says: “Indos petentibus utilissimum est ab Oceli egredi.” Ptolemy mentions a Pseudokêlis, which he places at the distance of half a degree from the emporium of Okêlis.
26. Beyond Okêlis, the sea again widening out towards the east, and gradually expanding into the open main, there lies, at about the distance of 1,200 stadia, Eudaimôn Arabia, a maritime village subject to that kingdom of which Kharibaêl is sovereign—a place with good anchorage, and supplied with sweeter and better water than that of Okêlis, and standing at the entrance of a bay where the land begins to retire inwards. It was called Eudaimôn (‘rich and prosperous’), because in bygone days, when the merchants from India did not proceed to Egypt, and those from Egypt did not venture to cross over to the marts further east, but both came only as far as this city, it formed the common centre of their commerce, as Alexandria receives the wares which pass to and fro between Egypt and the ports of the Mediterranean. Now, however, it lies in ruins, the Emperor having destroyed it not long before our own times.
(26) At a distance beyond Okêlis of 1,200 stadia is the port of Eudaimôn Arabia, which beyond doubt corresponds to 'Âden, [lat. 12° 45´ N., long. 45° 21´ E.] now so well-known as the great packet station between Suez and India. The opinion held by some that Aden is the Eden mentioned by the Prophet Ezekiel (xxvii. 23) is opposed by Ritter and Winer. It is not mentioned by Pliny, though it has been erroneously held that the Attanae, which he mentions in the following passage, was Aden. “Homnae et Attanae (v. 1. Athanae) quæ nunc oppida maxima celebrari a Persico mari negotiatores dicunt.” (vi. 32.) Ptolemy, who calls it simply Arabia, speaks of it as an emporium, and places after it at the distance of a degree and a half Melan Horos, or Black Hill, 17 miles from the coast, which is in long. 46° 59´ E. The place, as the Periplûs informs us, received the name of Eudaimôn from the great prosperity and wealth which it derived from being the great entrepôt of the trade between India and Egypt. It was in decay when that work was written, but even in the time of Ptolemy had begun to show symptoms of returning prosperity, and in the time of Constantine it was known as the ‘Roman Emporium,’ and had almost regained its former consequence, as is gathered from a passage in the works of the ecclesiastical historian Philostorgios. It is thus spoken of by Edrisi (I. p. 51): “'Âden is a small town, but renowned for its seaport whence ships depart that are destined for Sind, India, and China.” In the middle ages it became again the centre of the trade between India and the Red Sea, and thus regained that wonderful prosperity which in the outset had given it its name. In this flourishing condition it was found by Marco Polo, whose account of its wealth, power and influence is, as Vincent remarks, almost as magnificent as that which Agatharkhidês attributed to the Sabæans in the time of the Ptolemies, when the trade was carried on in the same manner. Agatharkhidês does not however mention the place by name, but it was probably the city which he describes without naming it as lying on the White Sea without the straits, whence, he says, the Sabæans sent out colonies or factories into India, and where the fleets from Persis, Karmania and the Indus arrived. The name of Aden is supposed to be a corruption from Eudaimôn.
27. To Eudaimôn Arabia at once succeeds a great length of coast and a bay extending 2,000 stadia or more, inhabited by nomadic tribes and Ikhthyophagoi settled in villages. On doubling a cape which projects from it you come to another trading seaport, Kanê, which is subject to Eleazos, king of the incense country. Two barren islands lie opposite to it, 120 stadia off—one called Orneôn, and the other Troullas. At some distance inland from Kanê is Sabbatha, the principal city of the district, where the king resides. At Kanê is collected all the incense that is produced in the country, this being conveyed to it partly on camels, and partly by sea on floats supported on inflated skins, a local invention, and also in boats. Kanê carries on trade with ports across the ocean—Barugaza, Skythia, and Omana, and the adjacent coast of Persis.
(27) The coast beyond Aden is possessed partly by wandering tribes, and partly by tribes settled in villages which subsist on fish. Here occurs a bay—that now called Ghubhet-al-Kamar, which extends upwards of 2,000 stadia, and ends in a promontory—that now called Râs-al-Asîdah or Bâ-l-hâf [lat. 13° 58´ N., long 48° 9´ S.—a cape with a hill near the fishing village of Gillah]. Beyond this lies another great mart called Kanê. It is mentioned by Pliny, and also by Ptolemy, who assigns it a position in agreement with the indications given in the Periplûs. It has been identified with the port now called Hisn Ghorâb [lat. 14° 0´ N. long. 48° 19´ E.]. Not far from this is an island called Halanî, which answers to the Troullas of our author. Further south is another island, which is called by the natives of the adjacent coast Sikkah, but by sailors Jibûs. This is covered with the dung of birds which in countless multitudes have always frequented it, and may be therefore identified with the Orneôn of the Periplûs. Kanê was subject to Eleazos, the king of the Frankincense Country, who resided at Sabbatha, or as it is called by Pliny (VI. xxxii. 155) Sabota, the capital of the Atramitae or Adramitae, a tribe of Sabæans from whom the division of Arabia now known as Hadhramaut takes its name. The position of this city cannot be determined with certainty. Wellsted, who proceeded into the interior from the coast near Hisn Ghorab through Wadi Meifah, came after a day’s journey and a half to a place called Nakb-el-Hajar, situated in a highly cultivated district, where he found ruins of an ancient city of the Himyarites crowning an eminence that rose gently with a double summit from the fertile plain. The city appeared to have been built in the most solid style of architecture, and to have been protected by a very lofty wall formed of square blocks of black marble, while the inscriptions plainly betokened that it was an old seat of the Himyarites. A close similarity could be traced between its ruins and those of Kanê, to which there was an easy communication by the valley of Meifah. This place, however, can hardly be regarded as Sabbatha without setting aside the distances given by Ptolemy, and Wellsted moreover learned from the natives that other ruins of a city of not less size were to be met with near a village called Esan, which could be reached by a three days’ journey.—(See Haines, Mem. of the S. Coast of Arab.)
28. From Egypt it imports, like Mouza, corn and a little wheat, cloths for the Arabian market, both of the common sort and the plain, and large quantities of a sort that is adulterated; also copper, tin, coral, styrax, and all the other articles enumerated at Mouza. Besides these there are brought also, principally for the king, wrought silver plate, and specie as well as horses and carved images, and plain cloth of a superior quality. Its exports are its indigenous products, frankincense and aloes, and such commodities as it shares in common with other marts on the same coast. Ships sail for this port at the same season of the year as those bound for Mouza, but earlier.
(28) With regard to the staple product of this region—frankincense, the Periplûs informs us that it was brought for exportation to Kanê. It was however in the first place, if we may credit Pliny, conveyed to the Metropolis. He says (xv. 32) that when gathered it was carried into Sabota on camels which could enter the city only by one particular gate, and that to take it by any other route was a crime punished by death. The priests, he adds, take a tithe for a deity named Sabis, and that until this impost is paid, the article cannot be sold.
Some writers would identify Sabbatha with Mariabo (Marab), but on insufficient grounds. It has also been conjectured that the name may be a lengthened form of Saba (Sheba), a common appellation for cities in Arabia Felix. [Müller places Sabbatha at Sawa, lat. 16° 13´ N., long. 48° 9´ E.]
29. As you proceed from Kanê the land retires more and more, and there succeeds another very deep and far-stretching gulf, Sakhalitês by name, and also the frankincense country, which is mountainous and difficult of access, having a dense air loaded with vapours [and] the frankincense exhaled from the trees. These trees, which are not of any great size or height, yield their incense in the form of a concretion on the bark, just as several of our trees in Egypt exude gum. The incense is collected by the hand of the king’s slaves, and malefactors condemned to this service as a punishment. The country is unhealthy in the extreme:—pestilential even to those who sail along the coast, and mortal to the poor wretches who gather the incense, who also suffer from lack of food, which readily cuts them off.