drawn by Lieut. Wilford, was printed in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. III, 1801.
"Nothing was ever written concerning their Country of the Moon, as far as we know, until the Hindus, who traded with the east coast of Africa, opened commercial dealings with its people in slaves and ivory, possibly some time prior to the birth of our Saviour, when, associated with their name, Men of the Moon, sprang into existence the Mountains of the Moon. These Men of the Moon are hereditarily the greatest traders in Africa, and are the only people, who, for love of barter and change, will leave their own country as porters and go to the coast, and they do so with as much zest as our country-folk go to a fair. As far back as we can trace they have done this, and they still do it as heretofore.
"The Hindu traders had a firm basis to stand upon, from their intercourse with the Abyssinians—through whom they must have heard of the country of Amara, which they applied to the Nyanza—and with the Wanyamurzi or Men of the Moon, from whom they heard of the Tanganyika and Karague mountains. Two church missionaries, Rebmann and Erhardt, without the smallest knowledge of the Hindu's map, constructed a map of their own, deduced from the Zanzibar traders, something on the same scale, by blending the Victoria Nyanza, Tanganyika, and Nyassa into one; whilst to their triuned lake they gave the name of Moon, because the Men of the Moon happened to live in front of the central lake."
This trading-voyage of the first century by Indian vessels, although less extended, was in other respects similar to that of the Arab traders of a century ago as described by Salt (op. cit., p. 103):
"The common track pursued by the Arab traders is as follows: they depart from the Red Sea in August (before which it is dangerous to venture out of the gulf), then proceed to Muscat, and thence to the coast of Malabar. In December they cross over to the coast of Africa, visit Mogdishu, Merka, Barawa, Lamu, Malindi, and the Querimbo Islands; they then direct their course to the Comoro Islands, and the northern ports of Madagascar, or sometimes stretch down southward as far as Sofala; this occupies them until after April, when they run up into the Red Sea, where they arrive in time to refit and prepare a fresh cargo for the following year."
14. The products of their own places.—For a discussion of the products of India imported into the Somali ports, see later, under § 41. The important thing to be noted here is that these agricultural products were regularly shipped, in Indian vessels, from the Gulf of Cambay; that these vessels exchanged their cargoes at Cape
