[2] The inhabitants were termed Avalitae, and the Bay "Sinus Avaliticus." Some modern travellers have confounded it with Adule or Adulis, the port of Axum, founded by fugitive Egyptian slaves. The latter, however, lies further north: D'Anville places it at Arkiko, Salt at Zula (or Azule), near the head of Annesley Bay. [3] The Arabs were probably the earliest colonists of this coast. Even the Sawahil people retain a tradition that their forefathers originated in the south of Arabia. [4] To the present day the district of Gozi is peopled by Mohammedans called Arablet, "whose progenitors," according to Harris, "are said by tradition to have been left there prior to the reign of Nagasi, first King of Shoa. Hossain, Wahabit, and Abdool Kurreem, generals probably detached from the victorious army of Graan (Mohammed Gragne), are represented to have come from Mecca, and to have taken possession of the country,--the legend assigning to the first of these warriors as his capital, the populous village of Medina, which is conspicuous on a cone among the mountains, shortly after entering the valley of Robi." [5] Historia Regum Islamiticorum in Abyssinia, Lugd. Bat. 1790. [6] The affinity between the Somal and the Berbers of Northern Africa, and their descent from Canaan, son of Ham, has been learnedly advanced and refuted by several Moslem authors. The theory appears to have arisen from a mistake; Berberah, the great emporium of the Somali country, being confounded with the Berbers of Nubia. [7] Probably Zaidi from Yemen. At present the people of Zayla are all orthodox Sunnites. [8] Fish, as will be seen in these pages, is no longer a favourite article of diet. [9] Bruce, book 8. [10] Hence the origin of the trade between Africa and Cutch, which continues uninterrupted to the present time. Adel, Arabia, and India, as Bruce remarks, were three partners in one trade, who mutually exported their produce to Europe, Asia, and Africa, at that time the whole known world. [11] The Turks, under a show of protecting commerce, established these posts in their different ports. But they soon made it appear that the end proposed was only to ascertain who were the subjects from whom they could levy the most enormous extortions. Jeddah, Zebid, and Mocha, the places of consequence nearest to Abyssinia on the Arabian coast, Suakin, a seaport town on the very barriers of Abyssinia, in the immediate way of their caravan to Cairo on the African side, were each under the command of a Turkish Pasha and garrisoned by Turkish troops sent thither from Constantinople by the emperors Selim and Sulayman.