"AT 1,000 FEET," BOMBS BURSTING N.W. OF TALI " 212 JIDALI FORT FROM THE GROUND " 218 SUN, SAND AND SOMALS CHAPTER I ZEILA Early history--Slave trade--Gen. Gordon--Somali tribes. Zeila is a port on the British Somaliland coast. It lies some twenty-eight miles South of the French port of Djibouti, and is one hundred and seventy miles North-East of the Abyssinian town of Harrar. Little is known of its history, but here is the story of the "oldest inhabitant" for what it is worth. In essential details it is fairly accurate. Sheikh Sa'du-d-din was the first Arab of importance to visit the place. He occupied the island named after him, situated a few miles North of the present town. There he built stone houses, and a large tank to preserve and store the rain water. The island is a dreary, waterless waste of sand, so what more natural than that the good man, who was a strict Mahomedan and a great warrior, should vary the monotony of existence by crossing to the mainland to raid and convert the heathen Galla, who grazed their herds in the vicinity of the present town. The Sheikh married a woman from the Dowa people who lived between the Danakils and the Abyssinians. When he was killed his progeny found their way back to their mother's town, where their descendants are still to be found. This town of Dowa or Daoua has, according to my informant, a custom or law that forbids any unmarried Mahomedan man to sleep within its precincts for even one night. Immediately on arrival the stranger is provided with a wife, who remains with him as long as he lives in the town. Should he leave it he may take neither wife nor children away. For many years after the Sheikh's death no one knows what happened, but it would appear that Arab traders began regularly to visit the Somali coast, where they carried on a lucrative trade by exchanging grain and cloth for coffee, ivory, and other products, brought in from the high country round Harrar. At first these Arabs did not make their homes on the coast, but returned at the end of every season to Arabia. Probably the first residents at Zeila were renegade Arabs, guilty of some unpurged offence in their own country, to which they were afraid to return. When the other traders went away these men built huts and settled down. As nothing happened to them, and they probably did very well, their more honest brethren followed their example in taking up their permanent residence on the coast. In this way began the town of Zeila.