the present site of Zayla; of its old locality almost may be said "periêre ruinæ."
During my stay with Sharmarkay I made many inquiries about historical works, and the Kazi; Mohammed Khatib, a Harar man of the Hawiyah tribe, was at last persuaded to send his Daftar, or office papers for my inspection. They formed a kind of parish register of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and manumissions. From them it appeared that in a.h. 1081 (A.D. 1670–71) the Shanabila Sayyids were Kazis of Zayla and retained the office for 138 years. It passed two generations ago into the hands of Mohammed Musa, a Hawiyah, and the present Kazi is his nephew.
The origin of Zayla, or as it is locally called, "Audal," is lost in the fogs of Phoenician fable. The Avalites[1] of the Periplus and Pliny, it was in earliest ages dependent upon the kingdom of Axum.[2] About the seventh century, when the Southern Arabs penetrated into the heart of Abyssinia,[3] it became the great factory
- ↑ The inhabitants were termed Avalitæ, 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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."
