Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/95

 55′E.) which empties below a mountain, Jebel Haima, 3800 feet high; there are ancient ruins here. The "small laurel grove" he places at Bandar Muriyeh (11° 40′ N., 50° 25′E.), below the Jebel Muriyeh, 4000 feet high.

11. Cape Elephant seems to be the modern Ras el Fil, or Filuk, 12° 0′N., 50° 32′E. It is a promontory 800 feet high, about 40 miles west of Cape Guardafui. The word fil is said also to mean "elephant," and the shape of the headland suggests the name. A river empties into the gulf just east of the promontory. Glaser (Skizze, 199) thinks this is too far east, and prefers Ras Hadadeh (48° 45′E.). Elephant River he identifies with the Dagaan (49°E.) or the Tokwina (49° 55′E.), from which the modern fusus frankincense is brought to Aden. But by placing Mosyllum at Ras Khamzir, Glaser is entirely too far west to admit of covering the remainder of this coast in two days' journey, as stated in §11. And the "southerly trend" of the coast just before Guardafui, mentioned in §12, fixes Cape Elephant at Ras el Fil.

Glaser objects to the relatively short two days' sail between Ras Hantara and Guardafui; but he fails to take into account the prevailing calms north of the cape, which would justify a shorter day's sail in that vicinity than farther west, where the winds are steadier.

Salt (op. cit., 97–8) says: "Scarcely had we got round the cape (Guardafui) when the wind deadened. At daylight w found that we had made scarcely any progress. The same marks on the shore remained the whole day abreast of us."

11. Acannae is identified with Bandar Ululah, 12° 0′N., 50° 42′E. McCrindle notes that Captain Saris, an English navigator, called here in 1611, and reported a river, emptying into a bay, offering safe anchorage for three ships abreast. Several sorts of gums, very sweet in burning, were still purchased by Indian ships from the Gulf of Cambay, which touched here for that purpose on their voyage to Mocha.

12. The Cape of Spices is, of course, the modern Cape Guardafui, or Ras Asir, 11° 50′N., 51° 16′E. McCrindle describes it as "a bluff point, 2500 feet high, as perpendicular as if it were scarped. The current comes round it out of the Gulf (of Aden) with such violence that it is not to be stemmed without a brisk wind, and during the S.W. monsoon the moment you are past the Cape to the north there is a stark calm with insufferable heat."