482 EARLY EXPLORERS OF AFRICA. 



in the Mediterranean. But if we remember the familiar Hebrew 

 idiom in which the right is the south (which is on your right hand, 

 as you face the rising sun) the mystery clears. This division of 

 the Ethiopians turned south — not north — between eastern lands 

 and the west, Magrib, iie.. Morocco, "and others in great number/' 

 continues Mas'udy, " went west towards Kanem (by Lake Chad) 

 and Ganah," i.e., Guinea (the "rich" land), and the Soudan in 

 general; that is to say, the road which the Nasamonians of Hero- 

 dotus and many a modern traveller has followed. 



Two more points before we leave Mas'udy. 



The first is the meaning of the name " Sofala." I was long 

 in doubt as to its provenance. A friend had even suggested a 

 Gonnection with the Kaffir prefix "So" in proper names (as if 

 it were a chief's name) ; on the other hand, I was assured it was 

 Arabic. A glance at Mas'tidy cleared all up : " Whenever a moun- 

 tain," he says, " stretches far beneath the water, it is given 

 the name of Sofala." He instances, in the Mediterranean, 

 Seleucia, the port of Antioch. It is indeed the Hebrew 

 " Shephelah," or lowland, the name by which the country at the 

 foot of the Judean hills is known. (I fear, misled by an Arab 

 as to the initial oif Sofala, I went astray in a former paper.*) 



Another point is the word given by Mas'udy for " chief," 

 which serves to identify his " Zeng " of Zanzibar and the coast. 

 The Swahili word is " Mfalme," or "Mfaume"; plural " Wa- 

 falme."t Mas'udy gives a word which the French edition 

 w^rites " Waklimi,"$ but in their note on the passage, they 

 allow that the manuscript which they prefer as a rule has zvaflinii, 

 and in the first volume, the same without the initial wa-, so that 

 we may regard the qaf as fa with a fly-blow, making his dot 

 appear doubled. § 



I was interested to find that Monsieur Ferrand, late of 

 Madagascar, had also taken the same view in a letter which I was 

 allowed to see. I cannot agree with Mr. Tooke's equation of 

 " Waglimi," and " Falimi," with " Badimo." 



And so much for Mas'udy and his predecessors of the 

 Mediterranean and the Arab worlds. 



I think it will be allowed that some of these ancients devoted 

 themselves to the cause of the opening up of Africa with an 

 energy and self-sacrifice scarcely rivalled by the moderns, even 

 of her own children. 



* The word begins with sin not sad. as in my Bantu Place-names 

 (1916). 



t ^J 



t /^^ 



§ Unfortunately the dot in my note t, after all, appears single. In 

 this case the opposite accident has mysteriously happened, and so helps still 

 to illustrate my point! 



