In the fourteenth century it became celebrated by its wars with the kings of Abyssinia: sustaining severe defeats the Moslems retired upon their harbour, which, after an obstinate defence fell into the hands of the Christians. The land was laid waste, the mosques were converted into churches, and the Abyssinians returned to their mountains laden with booty. About A.D. 1400, Saad el Din, the heroic prince of Zayla, was besieged in his city by the Hatze David the Second: slain by a spear- thrust, he left his people powerless in the hands of their enemies, till his sons, Sabr el Din, Ali, Mansur, and Jemal el Din retrieved the cause of El Islam. Ibn Batuta, a voyager of the fourteenth century, thus describes the place: "I then went from Aden by sea, and after four days came to the city of Zayla. This is a settlement, of the Berbers [6], a people of Sudan, of the Shafia sect. Their country is a desert of two months' extent; the first part is termed Zayla, the last Makdashu. The greatest number of the inhabitants, however, are of the Rafizah sect. [7] Their food is mostly camels' flesh and fish. [8] The stench of the country is extreme, as is also its filth, from the stink of the fish and the blood of camels which are slaughtered in its streets." About A.D. 1500 the Turks conquered Yemen, and the lawless Janissaries, "who lived upon the very bowels of commerce" [9], drove the peaceable Arab merchants to the opposite shore. The trade of India, flying from the same enemy, took refuge in Adel, amongst its partners. [10] The Turks of Arabia, though they were blind to the cause, were sensible of the great influx of wealth into the opposite kingdoms. They took possession, therefore, of Zayla, which they made a den of thieves, established there what they called a custom-house [11], and, by means of that post and galleys cruising in the narrow straits of Bab el Mandeb, they laid the Indian trade to Adel under heavy contributions that might indemnify them for the great desertion their violence and injustice had occasioned in Arabia. This step threatened the very existence both of Adel and Abyssinia; and considering the vigorous government of the one, and the weak politics and prejudices of the other, it is more than probable that the Turks would have subdued both, had they not in India, their chief object, met the Portuguese, strongly established. Bartema, travelling in A.D. 1503, treats in his 15th chapter of "Zeila in AEthiopia and the great fruitlessness thereof, and of certain strange beasts seen there."