The Periplus Maris Erythraei

The Periplus Maris Erythraei

Volumn , Issue , 2012, Pages 1-320

  Casson, Lionel ^a  

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References (158)

1. For the literature, see Raschke 979-81, nn. 1342-46. For a critical review of the arguments.
2. see W. Raunig, "Die Versuche einer Datierung des Periplus maris Erythraei," Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 100 (1970): 231-42.
3. See G. Bowersock in Journal of Roman Studies 61(1972): 223.
4. Cf. A. Negev in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 114 (1982): 122.
5. The annexation took place in 106 (Dio Cassius 68.14.5), and a Nabataean graffito attests to a "36th year of Rabbel" (Revue Biblique n.s. 8 [1911]: 273-77).
6. Cf. J. Eadie in J. Eadie and J. Ober, eds., The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays in Honor of Chester G. Starr (Lanham, Md., 1985): 412-15. The evidence offered is debatable;.
7. see G. Bowersock in Classical Review 38 (1988): 104.
8. So J. Palmer in CQ 41(1974): 140;.
9. H. von Wissmann in ANRW ii 9.1434-35 (1976);.
10. J. Pirenne, one of the most vocal of the advocates of a date in the third century, used a miscellany of arguments to eliminate the mention of Malichus and to support a late date, all of which were convincingly refuted by A. Dihle, Umstrittene Daten: Untersuchungen zum Auftreten der Griechen am Roten Meer (Cologne, 1965), 9-35;.
11. see also P. Leveque's summary in Revue des etudesgrecques 79 (1966): 73-32.
12. see J. Bloch, "Sur quelques transcriptions de noms indiens dans le Periple de la mer Erythree," Melanges d'Indianisme offerts par ses eleues a M. M. Sylvain Levi (Paris, 1911), 1-16 at 4.
13. M. Charlesworth in P. Coleman-Norton, ed., Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of Allen Chester Johnson (Princeton, 1951), 135-36;.
14. Wheeler 144;.
15. K. Nilakanta Sastri, The Colas (Madras, 1955), 22.
16. Cf. Frisk 92, n. I.
17. See Frisk 92 for a list of hapax legomena in the Periplus; the majority are technical terms.
18. See S. Ratnagar, Encounters: The Westerly Trade of the Harappa Civilization (Delhi, 1981).
19. As early as ca. 2400 B.C., Egypt dispatched expeditions to a land called Punt to bring back myrrh or frankincense (CAH i.2 183 [19713]). Punt is usually taken to be Somalia, although an argument has been offered that it was much nearer, the Ethiopian shore of the Red Sea (K. Kitchen, "Punt and How to Get There," Orientalia 40 [1971]: 184-207).
20. Cf. Solomon's use of Phoenicians for trading down the Red Sea (CAH ii.2 594 [19753]).
21. He points out (2.118) that in his day 120 vessels sailed, presumably annually, to Arabia and India. Previously less than twenty had (17.798).
22. Wheeler 137-39 and C. Rodewald, Money in the Age of Tiberius (Manchester, 1976), 48-51(coins);.
23. V. Begley in AJA 87 (1983): 475 (Arretme were dating from the first quarter of the first century A.D. found at Arikamedu).
24. Desanges 228-29.
25. Desanges 299-301.
26. Strabo 16.774, citing Artemidorus, who wrote ca. 100 B.C.
27. E.g., Italian and Laodicean wine (6:2.32-33, 49.16.20-21), tin (7:3.18, 28:9.15, 49:16.21, 56:18.19), saffron (see under 24:8.3a), storax (see under 28:9.16a), coral (see under 28:9.16), orpiment (see under 56:18.21).
28. Koptos was serving the Red Sea trade at least as early as ca. 2000 B.C. (CAH i.2 491[i97i3]).
29. For the roads from Koptos to Myos Hormos and Berenice, see under 1:1. 2-4 The transport company records, the so-called archive of Nicanor, consists of a group of almost ninety ostraca found at Koptos, dating from 18 B.C. to A D. 69 (O. Tait 1P220-304, ii 1968-71;.
30. Chronique d'Egypte 31[1956]: 356). In them various signatories at Myos Hormos and Berenice acknowledge receipt, on behalf of themselves or their employers, of goods delivered to them from Koptos by a company belonging to a certain Nicanor and his family. For discussion of the archive, see M. Rostovtzeff in Gnomon (1931): 23-25.
31. A. Fuks in Journal of Juristic Papyrology 5 (1951): 207-16, Sidebotham 83-92.
32. For recipients with offices in both ports, see Fuks 2 11. The transport was done by camel (cf. P225 and Fuks 208; transport by camel is also attested in the Vienna papyrus mentioned below [Harrauer-Sijpesteijn 130, line 2]), but transport by donkey as well cannot be entirely ruled out;.
33. J. Schwartz in Annates: economies, societes, civilisations is [1960]: 29).
34. For the literature on these ports, see under 1:1.2-4. Presumably they had extensive facilities for shipbuilding as well as ship maintenance and repair.
35. First published in Harrauer-Sypesteyn; reprinted with emendations and detailed commentary by G. Thiir in Tyche 2 (1987): 229-45; partially reprinted with emendations and revised interpretation in Casson 1986a.
36. The Arabic wine delivered to Barygaza was very likely picked up at Muza and the incense delivered to Barbankon at Kane; see below. The author mentions (57:19.7) that Kane was one of the departure points for the run to India.
37. Although Greek vessels unquestionably sailed as far as the mouth of the Ganges (Strabo 15:686), the Periplus gives the impression that they did not regularly put in at the Bay of Bengal ports, preferring to pick up east coast products at Muziris/Nelkynda, which maintained constant trade relations with that area; see below under "The Trade with India.".
38. E.g., the Vienna papyrus described above records a shipment from Muziris in India that was probably worth no less than 131talents and yet represented but a fraction of what the ship it traveled on could have carried; see below under "The Traders: Africa versus India.".
39. Cf. J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China iv.3 (Cambridge, 1971), 518-19;.
40. F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, I5th-l8th Century, lii, The Perspective of the World (New York, 1984), 490.
41. Warmington (257, 259) correctly inferred that iron, ghee, sugar, and certain other products were handled by merchants from India and Arabia but saw in this an attempt on their part to keep the handling a trade secret, to shut traders from Roman Egypt out. This was certainly true of costly items such as cassia (see under 8:3.30-13.5.4), but hardly of commodities. For merchants making the long voyage from Egypt, the profit was to be found in ivory, tortoise shell, spices, and the like, not iron or ghee.
42. Inscriptions reveal a line of trade that ran from the head of the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Indus and back carried on by merchants and shippers of Charax Spasinu and other cities in the area;.
43. cf. J. Matthews in Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 166. The author of the Periplus fails to mention it, although he does mention the line to Barygaza (36:12.9-10).
44. In later centuries Gujarat was famed for its textiles (M. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat [Berkeley, 1976], 11-12 ;.
45. Warmington 18;.
46. M. Charlesworth in P. Coleman-Norton, ed., Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of Allen Chester Johnson (Princeton, 1951), 142.
47. Harrauer-Sijpesteyn 130 (rect, col. li. 12-13) and cf. Casson 1986a.
48. Cf. Marco Polo 3.17: "No wheat grows in this province, but rice only.".
49. Grain, to be sure, was available in northern India. The province of Ariake, for example, produced it (41:14.5) and shipped it overseas (14:5.9-10). However, it obviously did not ship to southern India, where the rice eaters would have no use for it. Westerners resident there must have found it easier to draw from home the small quantities they needed rather than attempt to redirect the normal flow of Indian commerce in grain.
50. see D. Schlumberger, "Coiffures feminines similaires a Rome et dans I'Inde," in R. Chevallier, ed., Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire ojferts a Andre Piganiol 1(Paris, 1966), 587-95.
51. There were but two, of which the other was nard; see 39:13.10 (Barbarikon), 49:16.28 (Barygaza), 56:18.25 (Muziris/Nelkynda), 63:21.5 (Ganges).
52. On this term, see under 64:21.13-14.
53. Barbarikon received shipments of Chinese furs as well as of silk products (39:13.11). Although India had a silk industry of its own (see L. Gopal in JESHO 4 [1961]: 61-64), the Periplus's references are all to the Chinese import (cf. 64:2113-15).
54. For the Silk Route, see J. Thomson, History of Ancient Geography (Cambridge, 1948), 177-81, 306-12;.
55. W. Watson in CHI in 544-45 (map), 547-48 (1983);.
56. See Moti Chandra, Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India (Delhi, 1977), 177;.
57. Wheeler 155, and, for a detailed review of the various routes from Kashgar through the Pamirs, Sir Aurel Stein, "On Ancient Tracks Past the Pamirs," The Himalayan Journal 4 (1932): 1-24.
58. K. Gardiner in S. Mukherjee, India: History and Thought, Essays in Honour of A. L. Basham (Subarnarekha, 1982), 53-54, cites evidence from the Chinese sources.
59. So O. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce (Ithaca, 1967), 35.
60. F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient (Shanghai, 1885), 42 (reprinted in Schoff 276).
61. See R. Smith and W. Watson, eds., Early South East Asia (New York, 1979), 25.
62. where D. Bayard affirms that current evidence supports a date prior to 2000 B.C. for the first appearance of bronze in mainland Southeast Asia, and 37-38, where I. Selimkhanov argues not only for the use of local tin but for its exportation to the Near East. On India's scanty tin resources, cf. J. Muhly in AJA 89 (1985): 283.
63. Further east there are copper deposits at Chota Nagpur, a district west of Calcutta, and these seem to have been worked well before the Christian Era;.
64. see F. Allchin in JESHO 5 (1962): 196.
65. Ptolemy (7.2.20) reports the existence of copper mines m more distant India, beyond the Ganges.
66. 15.718 (tables, thrones, drinking cups, and bath basins of "Indian copper"). On the other hand, there is archaeological evidence that India imported bronzeware of this sort: at Brahmapuri (i7°33'N, 75°34'E), some one hundred miles northeast of Goa, a group of Roman bronze items was found that included ajug and basin as well as a statuette of Poseidon;.
67. see K. Khandalavala in Lalit Kala 7 (1960): 56-62 and cf. Wheeler 15 1. Most of them date from the first half of the first century A.D. and were probably manufactured in Campania (R. De Puma in AJA 91[1987]: 292).
68. See Raschke 665;.
69. See Raschke 665;.
70. Rodewald 48.
71. Warmington 292.
72. Wheeler 143-45.
73. Cf. Raschke 671. The cash was reckoned by the value of its metal, not its face value. The locals treated it as bullion: a mass of coins of a given weight would be exchanged for a given amount of pepper or cotton or gems, etc ;.
74. see Wheeler 140-41and, in greater detail, Wheeler in W. Grimes, ed., Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond, Essays presented to O.G.S. Crawford (London, 1951), 361-65.
75. U. Wilcken, "Punt-Fahrten in der Ptolemaerzeit," Zeitschrift fur agyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 60 (1925): 86-102 at 90 (text = SB 7169), 91(date), 92 (provenance), 92-93 and 96-98 (parties).
76. Harrauer-Sijpesteijn and cf. Casson 1986a. There has been general agreement all along that Rome's trade with the East was a matter of private enterprise;.
77. cf. M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 19572), 576-77;.
78. Warmington 310-11.
79. P Lond. ii 260 = Stud.Pal. iv, pp. 72-79, p. 74, line 549.
80. on Marcus Julius Alexander, see A. Fuks in Journal of Juristic Papyrology 5 (1951): 214-16.
81. See above, Text and Author: The Author and His Work.
82. For investment in trade by high-level Romans through agents and representatives, see J. D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 39-47 (late Republic), 152-53 and 158 (early Empire). For investment by wealthy members of the urban elite.
83. see H. Pleket, "Urban elites and business in the Greek part of the Roman Empire," in P. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, C. Whittaker, eds., Trade in the Ancient Economy (Berkeley, 1983), 130-44, esp. 137.
84. M. Crawford, "Economia imperiale e commercio estero," Tecnologia economia e societa net mondo romano, Atti del Convegno di Como 27/28/29 settembre 1979 (Como, 1980), 207-17 at 215-17.
85. This is the natural inference from the author's statement (29:9.28-29) that the labor was supplied by royal slaves and convicts and from the fact that at Moscha Limen sales were handled by royal agents and no loading aboard ship could take place without royal permission (32:11.2-6). Moscha Limen was a port of export only in exceptional cases; see under 32:11. 1-3.
86. The Vienna papyrus (Harrauer-Sijpesteijn) involves a loan agreement drawn up at Muziris for a shipment from there. For the foreign colony, see above, "The Trade with India.".
87. For the Palmyrenes, see Sidebotham 95 (clubhouse);.
88. I'Annee epigraphique (1912) no 171= ESAR 11no. 235, improved text by J. Bingen in Chronique d'Egypte 59 (1984): 356 (dedication by an association of Palmyrene merchants, chartered by Hadrian, in honor of a fellow countryman, a member of the "Palmyrene Shipowners of the Red Sea," who had paid for a propylaeum and three stoas as well as other benefactions; there is no evidence for an organization of "Palmyrene shippers and merchants," as is often asserted [cf. Sidebotham 95;.
89. H. Ingholt in Melanges de VUmversite Saint-Joseph 45 (1970): 198-99]).
90. For the merchant from Aden, see the inscription published by G. Wagner in Bulletin de I'Institut franais d'archeologie orientate 76 (1976): 278.
91. For Indians, see Dio Chrys. 32.40 (Indians among the spectators at games in Alexandria), Xenophon Ephes. 3. 11. 2 (an Indian rajah in Alexandria "for sightseeing in the city and for the business of trade").
92. For details of the sailing conditions along the two routes, the ships used, and the construction and rig of Greco-Roman craft, see App. 3.
93. Cf. App. 3, n. 22.
94. Harrauer-Sijpesteijn 132, lines 1-21.
95. Line 4: 78 tal., 54/4 mnas.
96. Line 16: 13 tal., 9% mnas.
97. The nard was valued at 45 tal. (line 3), the ivory at 76 tal. 4500 dr. (line 10), the textiles at 8 tal. 4290 dr. (line 21). The total shipment had a value of over 1154 talents (lines 27-29).
98. SSAW172.
99. It would be the equivalent of 30,000,000 denarii (20,000 talents = 120,000,000 drachmas, and the denarius was usually reckoned as the equivalent of a tetradrachm). This is, e.g., a third more than one of the distributions Augustus proudly proclaimed he gave to the populace of Rome (Res Gestae xv.iii. 15-17:60 denarii each to 320,000 people, a total of 19,200,000 denarii).
100. M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 1941), 389;.
101. Desanges 300-301.
102. Reume by J. Anderson in CAH x 880-81(1934).
103. Cf. M. Charlesworth in CQ 22 (1928): 92;.
104. J. Anderson in CAH x 881-83;.
105. Desanges 321-23.
106. Sidebotham 129.
107. Confidently asserts that "they had the definite purpose of arranging for the protection and the safety of members of the nations involved," and this view has been repeated by B. Mukherjee, An Agrippan Source (Calcutta, 1969), 9, n. 38.
108. W. Schmitthenner, in Journal of Roman Studies 69 (1979): 104, sees them as diplomatic moves whose aim was "to serve the re-establishment and protection of the maritime connections with India." Charlesworth's argument that Rome and India sought to effect the necessary protection by creating "treaty ports" is based on a misunderstanding of the Periplus's terminology;.
109. S. Jameson in Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968): 77 argues for 26-25.
110. Strabo 16.780-82; thoughtful resume in G. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge, Mass, 1983), 46-49.
111. The Arabian expedition seems to have been part of a widespread program of territorial aggrandizement that Augustus had set m motion;.
112. Either prized products, such as gems and pearls, or exotic curiosities, such as pythons and tigers; see Warmington 35-37.
113. On the use of barbaros and its derivatives as geographical terms, see H. Ingholt in Palmyre• Bilan et Perspectives, Colloque de Strasbourg, 18-20 Octobre igjj (Strasbourg, 1976), 107.
114. That Mapharitis included Muza is implicit in the administrative arrangements for Rhapta described below.
115. 1:1.2 and 1.4, 30:10.1, 32:10.30, 33:11.8, 58:19.18.
116. 1:1.1 and 1.2, 7:3.12, 8:3.24, 12:4.22, 15:5.23, 19:6.26, 25:8.20, 26:8.24, 32:10.29, 44:15.10, 58:19.16, 60:20.4.
117. Thus, in 32:10.30, a port named M6oxa Xiv is referred to as a 00(105).
118. Fabncius's view of an emporion nomimon has been revived by Huntingford (83): "ports recognized as official marts for the hinterland they served.".
119. The first commentators to connect the expressions with government regulations made exaggerated claims for Rome's official interest in, and supervision of, her trade with the East; see Introduction: Trade in the Indian Ocean, A Roman Economic Policy? For later, less exaggerated views, cf. Warmington 53 (emporia nomima were "legal marts where foreign trade was allowed and dues levied"); M. Charlesworth, "Roman Trade with India: A Resurvey," in P. Coleman-Norton, ed., Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of Allen Chester Johnson (Princeton, 1951), 131-43, esp. 138-43, and his conclusion on 142 ("these all appear to be varying terms for what the nineteenth century would have called 'Treaty-Ports' "); Wheeler 116-17 ("Rome had established trading rights at the town [of Muza]"; "a treaty-port called Apologos").
120. See Charlesworth cited in n. 5 above; Wheeler 115 ("designated ... perhaps as the authorized channels for certain types of goods"); J. Palmer, "Penplus Maris Erythraei'. imogiov vomnov and other expressions," C Q 45 (1951): 156-58 at 158 ("the prescribed ports from which export cargoes for the East might be shipped, and to which possibly, certain imports from the East were confined").
121. For other occurrences of the term "designated harbors," see P. Laur. 6.5-6 (A.D. 97-117), P. Lond. 295.7-8 (A.D. 118), P. Aberd. 20.9 (2d century A.D.).
122. P. Hib. 198.110-22 and cf. the editors' note. R. Bagnall, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 6 (1969): 93-96, taking the passage to refer to ships coming from the open sea to the mouth of the Nile, restored the text so that it said (93): "let those sailing toward the river to anchor give notice during the day at the appointed places etc." This asks too much of the technology of communications in a prewireless age; the editors' version is to be retained. Cf. J. Velissaropoulos, Les naucleres grecs, Centre de recherches d'histoire et de philologie de la IV' section de l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes 111: Hautes etudes du monde greco-romain 9 (Paris, 1980), 159, who considers the restoration questionable on other grounds.
123. The editors mention only the danger of pirates, i.e., attack from the river. However, for a boat forced to put in at some isolated point along the shore there was just as much danger of attack from the land; cf. W. Ashburner, The Rhodian Sea-Law (Oxford, 1909), cxliv.
124. Numerous votives, dating from the third to the first century B.C., were found at the sanctuary of Pan at El-Kanai's, a station on a major route between Berenice and the Nile Valley, in which the donors thank the deity for "having saved them from the Trogodytes"; see under 2:1.7-10. The Periplus (4:2.1-4) reports that at Adulis, because of raids carried out by the local Barbaroi, the port had to be transferred from its original location to an island a safe distance away. See Ashburner, loc. cit. n. 9 above, for legal provisions arising from banditry.
125. The Ptolemies maintained a patrol fleet on the Nile that eventually came to include units o f the royal navy; see M Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 1941), 715.
126. They may have had one on the Red Sea in the third century B.C. (Rostovtzeff 387), and they certainly did have a guard of some sort there in the late second century (Strabo 2.98: "guards of the Arabian g u l f " pick up a sailor from a wrecked Indian ship). Opinion on whether the practice was continued by Rome is divided; see the literature cited by Raschke 892, n. 957 (pro) and 958 (con), and the discussion-with no resolution-in Sidebotham 68-71. The meaning I offer for apodedeigmenos supports the suggestion of C. Starr (The Roman Imperial Navy [Cambridge, 1960s, 113) that at least a limited number of ships were kept on patrol in the Red Sea.
127. For a detailed study of the passage in which Kalliena is mentioned and its historical context, see Casson 1983a = Casson 1984.211-24.
128. G. Houram, Arab Seafaring (Princeton, 1951), 32.
129. See Warmington, Charlesworth, and Wheeler cited in n. 5 above.
130. Palmer (n. 6 above) 156.
131. Palmer (n. 6 above) 156-57. 8 They had to await the turn of the monsoon winds; see App. 3. " Or at Mosyllon, which exported cassia in considerable quantity (10:4.9-10), or Kane, whose trade connections reached to Persia and India (27:9.10-12).
132. Palmer (n. 6 above) 157.
133. Cf. the situation that Jean-Baptiste Labat came across in West Africa in 1698: "c'est une coutume etablie chez ces peuples, que le Maitre ou Seigneur du Village, avec trois ou quatre principaux Maitres du chemins, c'est-a-dire les pnncipaux Marchands qui vont traitter dans les pays eloignez, font le prix des marchandises, et que ce qu'ils ont arrete, est une taxe et une regie que tous les autres suivent sans contestation" (Nouvelle relation de I'Afrique Occidentale [Paris, 1728], iii 337-38).
134. E.g., Mosyllon, where the export par excellence was cassia (10:4.9-10), or Kane or Moscha, where it was frankincense (27.9.8-9, 32:11.3).
135. A "run" was limited to a day's sail since, on coasting voyages, particularly along dangerous shores such as those of the Red Sea, it was common practice to travel only during daylight hours and put up at any convenient point for the night. Cf., for example, the voyage of Carsten Niebuhr in 1762 (T. Hansen, Arabia Felix• The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767 [New York, 1962], 209).
136. of Alan Villiers in 1938 (Mariner's Mirror 47 [1961]: 247).
137. When not coasting vessels perforce sailed night and day. The Periplus (20:7.14-16) counsels sailing straight down the middle o f the Red Sea to get to Muza, thereby avoiding the pirates as well as the natural hazards of the Arabian coast; that voyage surely was done without a stop.
138. F. Hultsch, Griechische und romische Metrologie (Berlin, 1882), 50-51.
139. Hultsch 51, n. 1. Cf. Bunbury ii 455, n. 3, where he reckons a thirty-day run as 15,000 stades.
140. Cf. Bunbury 1 546. D. Engels's article, "The Length of Eratosthenes' Stade," American Journal of Philology 106 (1985): 298-311, in effect repeats (298) Bunbury's conclusion.
141. The total 2 + 2 + 2 or 2 + 3 + 2 runs, reckoned at 500 states each. Mundu Mosyllon (10:4.6-7) is "two, perhaps three, runs"; this I take to mean two with a normal wind, three with a wind feebler than normal.
142. Over-and underestimates balance out to yield a more or less correct total; see under 32:10.30a.
143. The author reports (7:3.9-11) that "after about 4000 stades ... come the rest of the ports of trade of the Barbaroi." Commentators take this to mean from Adulis; cf. Mûller, McCrindle, Fabricius. Yet the last mention of distance was the 800 stades from Adulis to Hauachil Bay (5:2.16).
144. The author specifies that the figure is for the direct sail, not along the coast; cf. Bunbury li 4J5, n. 3.
145. T w o day-and-night runs = four ordinary runs.
146. Bunbury was, if anything, overimpressed. He concludes (ii 455, n. 3) that the author's "statements as to distances are generally very correct." ' Monsoon Seas (New York, 1952), 7.
147. For the monsoons, see U.S. Defense Mapping Agency, Hydrographic Center Pub. 61, Sailing Directions for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (5th ed. 1965, rev. 1976) section 1-26 to 28 (Red Sea), 1-29 to 31 (Gulf of Aden).
148. Pub. 60, Sailing Directions for the Southeast Coast of Africa (5th ed. 1968, rev. 1975) section 1-23; Pub. 63, Sailing Directions for the West Coast of India (5th ed. 1967, rev. 1976) section 1-26 to 27. ' SSA W 183-90 (size of Mediterranean freighters), 201-8 (hull structure), 239-43 (rig)-.
149. Thus Ibn Majid, author of a treatise on navigation published towards the end of the 15th century, cautions that, in certain crossings from the south coast of Arabia to the island of Socotra, "they do not travel... unless the wind is light because they are travelling contrary to the Kaws [southwest wind]" (G. Tibbets, Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean before the Coming of the Portuguese, Oriental Translation Fund, New Series xlii [London, 1971], 229).
150. Cf. the rueful words of a British naval commander who in 1799 tried to sail a full-rigged ship against the even milder northeast monsoon: "Thus terminated one of the most perplexing and tedious Voyages ever made by any Ships. It is, I believe, the first Attempt ever made to beat up the Coast of Africa against the Easterly Monsoon, and it is to be hoped Nobody would ever attempt it again" (A. Bissell, A Voyage from England to the Red-Sea and along the East Coast of Arabia to Bombay ... 1798 and 1799 [London, 1806], 47).
151. Cf. Guillain i 96: one and one-half knots of current as far as some sixty miles south of Ras Asswad (4°34'N), two to three from there on.
152. This is the way the ship that carried Henry Salt from Zanzibar to Aden in 1809 did it; see Salt 94-99. The southwest monsoon carried them north to Cape Guardafui by 27 September, then a light wind typical of the transition period and adverse current prevented progress all of the 28th, after which the northeast monsoon wafted them to Aden by the 3d of October. Zanzibar was by no means the only place where the alternation of monsoons could cause long layovers. "Because of the Azyab [northeast m o n s o o n] ... he who is forced to moor in Yemen," states Ibn Majid (Tibbets, n. 4 above, 227), "must stay there a whole year when bound for India" (from October, when the northeast monsoon sets in, until September of the following year, when the southwest monsoon has quieted down sufficiently to allow a safe passage and arrival [cf. n. 18 below]).
153. By the first week of April the place is again deserted" (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 19 [1849]: 54-55.
154. also quoted by Richard Burton in his First Footsteps in East Africa [London, 1856], 225-26).
155. cf. R. Bogaert in Chronique d'Egypte 40 [1965]. 149). Indeed it was. The outbound voyage could have started anytime between June and August (Chart 1 A, 2 A) and the homebound voyage between November and March (Chart 2 D/E, 1 D/E).
156. Two varieties of cotton were known in the Old World, Gossyptum arboreum and Gossypium herbaceum, both of which grew in India. Warmmgton (210) asserts that the first produced a cotton useful only for padding. According to the manuals, however, there is no distinction in quality between the two; see A. Doberczak, St Dowgielewicz, and W. Zurek, Cotton, Bast and Wool Fibers (Warsaw, 1964), 16. ' 53:17.22-27 (Semylla, Mandagora, Palaipatmai, Melizeigara, Byzantion, Toparon [?], Tyrannosboas, Sesekreienai Islands, Isle of the Aigidioi, Isle o f the Kaineitoi, White Island, Naura, Tyndis, Muziris, Nelkynda [-Bakare]); 58:19.13-18 (Red Mountain, Balita, Komar). On the querying of Toparon, see under B 53:17.23-24.
157. O. Stein, RE s.v. Toparon 2 (1937), taking it for a proper reading, locates it at Devgarh (I6°23').
158. A. Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History [Kottayam, 1967], 60, who cites an illuminating passage). The various attempts to locate the site of Tyndis/Tondi are reviewed by O. Stein, RE s.v. TOvSij 2 (1948), who cautiously reserves judgment. One factor in favor of Ponnani is that it is the port nearest the great gap, twenty miles wide, through the ghats at Palghat which provides easy access to Coimbatore and across to the eastern coast. The route for traffic between the two sides of the peninsula, a route that eliminated the long sail around the tip, must have gone this way in ancient times as m modern. See W. Logan, Malabar (Madras, 1887), i 3, 77.