(16) We arrive next and finally at +Rhapta+, the last emporium on the coast known to the author. Ptolemy mentions not only a city of this name, but also a river and a promontory. The name is Greek (from ῥάπτειν, _to sew_), and was applied to the place because the vessels there in use were raised from bottoms consisting of single trunks of trees by the addition of planks which were sewn together with the fibres of the cocoa. “It is a singular fact,” as Vincent remarks, “that this peculiarity should be one of the first objects which attracted the attention of the Portuguese upon their reaching this coast. They saw them first at Mozambique, where they were called _Almeidas_, but the principal notice of them in most of their writers is generally stated at Kilwa, the very spot which we have supposed to receive its name from vessels of the same construction.” Vincent has been led from this coincidence to identify Rhapta with Kilwa [lat. 8° 50´ S.]. Müller however would place it not so far south, but somewhere in the Bay of Zangibar. The promontory of +Rhaptum+, he judges from the indications of the _Periplûs_ to be the projection which closes the bay in which lies the island of Zangibar, and which is now known as +Moinanokalû+ or Point Pouna, lat. 7° S. The parts beyond this were unknown, and the southern coast of Africa, it was accordingly thought by the ancient geographers, began here. Another cape however is mentioned by Ptolemy remoter than Rhaptum and called +Prasum+ (that is the Green Cape) which may perhaps be Cape Delgado, which is noted for its luxuriant vegetation. The same author calls the people of +Rhapta+, the +Rhapsioi Aithiopes+. They are described in the _Periplûs_ as men of lofty stature, and this is still a characteristic of the Africans of this coast. The +Rhapsii+ were, in the days of our author, subject to the people of +Mouza+ in Arabia just as their descendants are at the present day subject to the Sultan of Maskat. Their commerce moreover still maintains its ancient characteristics. It is the African who still builds and mans the ships while the Arab is the navigator and supercargo. The ivory is still of inferior quality, and the turtle is still captured at certain parts of the coast. 17. The articles imported into these marts are principally javelins manufactured at Mouza, hatchets, knives, awls, and crown glass of various sorts, to which must be added corn and wine in no small quantity landed at particular ports, not for sale, but to entertain and thereby conciliate the barbarians. The articles which these places export are ivory, in great abundance but of inferior quality to that obtained at Adouli, rhinoceros, and tortoise-shell of fine quality, second only to the Indian, and a little _nauplius_.