16. Great in stature.—"The whole system of slaveholding by the Arabs in Africa, or rather on the coast or at Zanzibar, is exceedingly strange; for the slaves, both in individual strength and in numbers, are so superior to the Arab foreigners, that if they chose to rebel, they might send the Arabs flying out of the land. It happens, however, that they are spell-bound, not knowing their strength any more than domestic animals, and they seem to consider that they would be dishonest if they ran away after being purchased, and so brought pecuniary loss on their owners." (Speke, op. cit., introduction.)
16. Sovereignty of the state that is become first in Arabia.—A vivid picture is here given us of the early policies of the Arabs. Prevented by superior force from expanding northward, but useful commercially to their stronger neighbors, they were free to exploit Africa. The early Egyptian records bear testimony to their activities in the second millennium B. C., if not earlier. The "Ausanitic Coast" mentioned in § 15 was probably a possession of Ausan when that state was independent, which was not later than the 7th century B. C. Later the coast became Katabanic, then Sabaean, then Homerite. From the 3d to the 6th centuries A. D., according to the Adulis inscription and Cosmas Indicopleustes, it was Abyssinian. In Mohammedan times it returned to the Arab allegiance, and until Zanzibar and the adjacent coast accepted the English protectorate they were dependencies of the Sultan of Muscat.
Glaser has well expressed this undoubted fact of Arab dominion (Skizze, II, 209): "We must finally abandon the idea that Mohammed was the first to bring Arabia into a leading position in the world's history. So long as Rome and Persia (and Egypt and Babylon before them) retained their power, the Arabs could expand in Africa only. But as soon as these states became exhausted, then Arabia burst forth irresistibly and overflowed the northern world." (See also Punt und die Südarabischen Reiche, 20–23.)
Previous translators of the Periplus have much misunderstood the meaning of this passage in the text.
16. Arab captains who know the whole coast.—The discovery by Carl Maunch in 1871, of strange temple-like structures in northern Rhodesia, led to a great deal of wild assumption as to their history. The ruins are loosely-built stone enclosures, some of them irregularly elliptical in form, having conical pillars within, and apparently facing North, East, and West. The largest of them were situated somewhat South of the present Salisbury–Beria railway line, near the upper waters of the Sabi River and within reach of the trade
