Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/93

Rh 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 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 of the Periplus and Pliny, it was in earliest ages dependent upon the kingdom of Axum. About the seventh century, when the Southern Arabs penetrated into the heart of Abyssinia, it became the great factory