(29) The next place mentioned by our author after Kanê is a Bay called Sakhalîtes, which terminates at Suagros, a promontory which looks eastward, and is the greatest cape in the whole world. There was much difference of opinion among the ancient geographers regarding the position of this Bay, and consequently regarding that of Cape Suagros.
30. Now at this gulf is a promontory, the greatest in the world, looking towards the east, and called Suagros, at which is a fortress which protects the country, and a harbour, and a magazine to which the frankincense which is collected is brought. Out in the open sea, facing this promontory, and lying between it and the promontory of Arômata, which projects from the opposite coast, though nearer to Suagros, is the island going by the name of Dioskoridês, which is of great extent, but desert and very moist, having rivers and crocodiles and a great many vipers, and lizards of enormous size, of which the flesh serves for food, while the grease is melted down and used as a substitute for oil. This island does not, however, produce either the grape or corn. The population, which is but scanty, inhabits the north side of the island—that part of it which looks towards the mainland (of Arabia). It consists of an intermixture of foreigners, Arabs, Indians, and even Greeks, who resort hither for the purposes of commerce. The island produces the tortoise,—the genuine, the land, and the white sort: the latter very abundant, and distinguished for the largeness of its shell; also the mountain sort which is of extraordinary size and has a very thick shell, whereof the underpart cannot be used, being too hard to cut, while the serviceable part is made into moneyboxes, tablets, escritoires, and ornamental articles of that description. It yields also the vegetable dye (κιννάβαρι) called Indicum (or Dragon’s-blood), which is gathered as it distils from trees.
(30) Some would identify the latter with Ras-el-Had, and others on account of the similarity of the name with Cape Saugra or Saukirah [lat. 18° 8´ N., long. 56° 35´ E.], where Ptolemy places a city Suagros at a distance of 6 degrees from Kanê, But Suagros is undoubtedly Ras Fartak [lat. 15° 39´ N., long 52° 15´ E.], which is at a distance of 4 degrees from Hisn Ghorab, or Kanê, and which, rising to the height of 2,500 feet on a coast which is all low-lying, is a very conspicuous object, said to be discernible from a distance of 60 miles out at sea. Eighteen miles west from this promontory is a village called Saghar, a name which might probably have suggested to the Greeks that of Suagros. Consistent with this identification is the passage of Pliny (VI. 32) where he speaks of the island Dioscoridis (Sokotra) as distant from Suagros, which he calls the utmost projection of the coast, 2,240 stadia or 280 miles, which is only about 30 miles in excess of the real distance, 2,000 stadia.
With regard to the position of the Bay of Sakhalitês, Ptolemy, followed by Marcianus, places it to the East of Suagros. Marinos on the other hand, like the Periplûs, places it to the west of it. Muller agrees with Fresnel in regarding Sakhlê, mentioned by Ptolemy (VI. vii. 41) as 1½ degree East of Makalleh [lat. 14° 31´ N., long 49° 7´ W.] as the same with Shehr—which is now the name of all that mountainous region extending from the seaport of Makalleh to the bay in which lie the islands of Kurya Murya. He therefore takes this to be in the Regio Sakhalîtês, and rejects the opinion of Ptolemy as inconsistent with this determination. With regard to Shehr or Shehar [lat. 14° 38´ N., long. 49° 22´ E.] Yule (M. Polo, II. vol. p. 440, note) says: “Shihr or Shehr still exists on the Arabian Coast as a town and district about 330 miles east of Aden.” The name Shehr in some of the oriental geographies includes the whole Coast up to Oman. The hills of the Shehr and Dhafâr districts were the great source of produce of the Arabian frankincense.
The island of Dioskoridês (now Sokotra) is placed by the Periplûs nearer to Cape Suagros than to Cape Arômata—although its distance from the former is nearly double the distance from the latter. The name, though in appearance a Greek one, is in reality of Sanskrit origin; from Dvîpa Sukhâdâra, i.e. insula fortunata, ‘Island abode of Bliss.’ The accuracy of the statements made regarding it in the Periplûs is fully confirmed by the accounts given of it by subsequent writers. Kosmas, who wrote in the 6th century, says that the inhabitants spoke Greek, and that he met with people from it who were on their way to Ethiopia, and that they spoke Greek. “The ecclesiastical historian Nikephoros Kallistos,” says Yule, “seems to allude to the people of Sokotra when he says that among the nations visited by the Missionary Theophilus in the time of Constantius, were ‘the Assyrians on the verge of the outer Ocean, towards the East ... whom Alexander the Great, after driving them from Syria, sent thither to settle, and to this day they keep their mother tongue, though all of the blackest, through the power of the sun’s rays.’ The Arab voyagers of the 9th century say that the island was colonized with Greeks by Alexander the Great, in order to promote the culture of the Sokotrine aloes; when the other Greeks adopted Christianity these did likewise, and they had continued to retain their profession of it. The colonizing by Alexander is probably a fable, but invented to account for facts.” (Marco Polo II. 401.) The aloe, it may be noted, is not mentioned in the Periplûs as one of the products of the island. The islanders, though at one time Christians, are now Muhammadans, and subject as of yore to Arabia. The people of the interior are still of distinct race with curly hair, Indian complexion, and regular features. The coast people are mongrels of Arab and mixed descent. Probably in old times civilization and Greek may have been confined to the littoral foreigners. Marco Polo notes that so far back as the 10th century it was one of the stations frequented by the Indian corsairs called Bawârij, belonging to Kachh and Gujarat.
31. The island is subject to the king of the frankincense country, in the same way as Azania is subject to Kharibaël and the despot of Mopharitis. It used to be visited by some (merchants) from Mouza, and others on the homeward voyage from Limurikê and Barugaza would occasionally touch at it, importing rice, corn, Indian cotton and female-slaves, who, being rare, always commanded a ready market. In exchange for these commodities they would receive as fresh cargo great quantities of tortoise-shell. The revenues of the island are at the present day farmed out by its sovereigns, who, however, maintain a garrison in it for the protection of their interests.
32. Immediately after Suagros follows a gulf deeply indenting the mainland of Omana, and having a width of 600 stadia. Beyond it are high mountains, rocky and precipitous, and inhabited by men who live in caves. The range extends onward for 500 stadia, and beyond where it terminates lies an important harbour called Moskha, the appointed port to which the Sakhalitik frankincense is forwarded. It is regularly frequented by a number of ships from Kanê; and such ships as come from Limurikê and Barugaza too late in the season put into harbour here for the winter, where they dispose of their muslins, corn, and oil to the king’s officers, receiving in exchange frankincense, which lies in piles throughout the whole of Sakhalitis without a guard to protect it, as if the locality were indebted to some divine power for its security. Indeed, it is impossible to procure a cargo, either publicly or by connivance, without the king’s permission. Should one take furtively on board were it but a single grain, his vessel can by no possibility escape from harbour.
(32) Returning to the mainland the narrative conducts us next to Moskha, a seaport trading with Kanê, and a wintering place for vessels arriving late in the season from Malabar and the Gulf of Khambât. The distance of this place from Suagros is set down at upwards of 1,100 stadia, 600 of which represent the breadth of a bay which begins at the Cape, and is called Omana Al-Kamar. The occurrence of the two names Omana and Moskha in such close connexion led D’Anville to suppose that Moskha is identical with Maskat, the capital of Oman, the country lying at the south-east extremity of Arabia, and hence that Ras-el-Ḥad, beyond which Maskat lies, must be Cape Suagros. This supposition is, however, untenable, since the identification of Moskha with the modern Ausera is complete. For, in the first place, the Bay of Seger, which begins at Cape Fartak, is of exactly the same measurement across to Cape Thurbot Ali as the Bay of Omana, and again the distance from Cape Thurbot Ali [lat. 16° 38´ N., long. 53° 3´ E.] to Ras-al-Sair, the Ausara of Ptolemy, corresponds almost as exactly to the distance assigned by our author from the same Cape to Moskha. Moreover Pliny (XII. 35) notices that one particular kind of incense bore the name of Ausaritis, and, as the Periplûs states that Moskha was the great emporium of the incense trade, the identification is satisfactory.
There was another Moskha on this coast which was also a port. It lay to the west of Suagros, and has been identified with Koshîn [lat. 15° 21´ N. long. 51° 39´ E.]. Our author, though correct in his description of the coast, may perhaps have erred in his nomenclature; and this is the more likely to have happened as it scarcely admits of doubt that he had no personal knowledge of South Arabia beyond Kanê and Cape Suagros. Besides no other author speaks of an Omana so far to westward as the position assigned to the Bay of that name. The tract immediately beyond Moskha or Ausera is low and fertile, and is called Dofar or Zhafâr, after a famous city now destroyed, but whose ruins are still to be traced between Al-hâfâh and Addahariz. “This Dhafâr,” says Yule (Marco Polo II. p. 442 note) “or the bold fountain above it, is supposed to be the Sephar of Genesis X. 30.” It is certain that the Himyarites had spread their dominion as far eastward as this place. Marco Polo thus describes Dhafâr:—“It stands upon the sea, and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby.... Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes, also, it flows from the tree without any notch, this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.” Müller would identify Moskha with Zhafâr, and accounts for the discrepancy of designation by supposing that our author had confounded the name Maskat, which was the great seat of the traffic in frankincense with the name of the greatest city in the district which actually produced it. A similar confusion he thinks transferred the name of Oman to the same part of the country. The climate of the incense country is described as being extremely unhealthy, but its unhealthiness seems to have been designedly exaggerated.
33. From the port of Moskha onward to Asikh, a distance of about 1,500 stadia, runs a range of hills pretty close to the shore, and at its termination there are seven islands bearing the name of Zenobios, beyond which again we come to another barbarous district not subject to any power in Arabia, but to Persia. If when sailing by this coast you stand well out to sea so as to keep a direct course, then at about a distance from the island of Zenobios of 2,000 stadia you arrive at another island, called that of Sarapis, lying off shore, say, 120 stadia. It is about 200 stadia broad and 600 long, possessing three villages inhabited by a savage tribe of Ikhthyophagoi, who speak the Arabic language, and whose clothing consists of a girdle made from the leaves of the cocoa-palm. The island produces in great plenty tortoise of excellent quality, and the merchants of Kanê accordingly fit out little boats and cargo-ships to trade with it.
(33) Beyond Moskha the coast is mountainous as far as Asikh and the islands of Zenobios—a distance excessively estimated at 1,500 stadia. The mountains referred to are 5,000 feet in height, and are those now called Subaha. Asikh is readily to be identified with the Hâsek of Arabian geographers. Edrisi (I. p. 54) says: “Thence (from Marbat) to the town of Hâsek is a four days’ journey and a two days’ sail. Before Hâsek are the two islands of Khartan and Martan. Above Hâsek is a high mountain named Sous, which commands the sea. It is an inconsiderable town but populous.” This place is now in ruins, but has left its name to the promontory on which it stood [Râs Hâsek, lat. 17° 23´ N. long. 55° 20´ E. opposite the island of Hasiki]. The islands of Zenobios are mentioned by Ptolemy as seven in number, and are those called by Edrisi Khartan and Martan, now known as the Kuriyân Muriyân islands. The inhabitants belonged to an Arab tribe which was spread from Hâsek to Râs-el-Ḥad, and was called Beit or Beni Jenabi, whence the Greek name. M. Polo in the 31st chapter of his travels “discourseth of the two islands called Male and Female,” the position of which he vaguely indicates by saying that “when you leave the kingdom of Kesmacoran (Mekran) which is on the mainland, you go by sea some 500 miles towards the south, and then you find the 2 islands Male and Female lying about 30 miles distant from one another.” (See also Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 396 note.)
Beyond Asikh is a district inhabited by barbarians, and subject not to Arabia but to Persis. Then succeeds at a distance of 200 stadia beyond the islands of Zenobios the island of Sarapis, (the Ogyris of Pliny) now called Masira [lat. 20° 10´ to 20° 42´ N., long. 58° 37´ to 58° 59´ E.] opposite that part of the coast where Oman now begins. The Periplûs exaggerates both its breadth and its distance from the continent. It was still inhabited by a tribe of fish-eaters in the time of Ebn Batuta, by whom it was visited.
On proceeding from Sarapis the adjacent coast bends round, and the direction of the voyage changes to north. The great cape which forms the south-eastern extremity of Arabia called Ras-el-Had [lat. 22° 33´ N. long. 59° 48´ E.] is here indicated, but without being named; Ptolemy calls it Korodamon (VI. vii. 11.)
34. If sailing onward you wind round with the adjacent coast to the north, then as you approach the entrance of the Persian Gulf you fall in with a group of islands which lie in a range along the coast for 2,000 stadia, and are called the islands of Kalaiou. The inhabitants of the adjacent coast are cruel and treacherous, and see imperfectly in the daytime.