346 Rkport 8.A.A. Advancement of Sciencic. 



the Merchant" tell us that the Zeng grow millet, which is theii- chief 

 food, and sugar-cane, hut their sugar is very black. Certain men they 

 have, called Moharamin, because they wear nose-rings. Others are 

 priests or preachers, clad in leopard or monkey skins, who preach 

 unceasingly of God and of the famous deeds of their ancestors. Al 

 Mas'udy's account is much longer and more detailed. It is unneces- 

 sary and inexpedient to reproduce it here ; it is manifestly accurate, 

 and is doubtless derived from authentic sources, supplemented in all 

 probability by personal obsersations, gathei'ed from his co-religionists 

 during his sojourn in the East African island that he calls Kanbalu. 



Although in the tenth century the harliours of the Zeng country 

 so far south as Sofala wei"e frequently visited by the mariners of 8hiraf 

 and Oman, yet, if history may be credited, the seeds of decay of this 

 coastwise commerce were ah'eady sown when the Caliph Al Mansur, 

 in order to punish the holy but rebel cities of Medina and Mecca, 

 closed the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. The harvests of 

 Egypt could then no longer be transferred to the population of 

 Arabia, and the ra\ages of the pirates of 8ocotra hampered the 

 trade between India, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. But 

 especially suffered the trade between Egypt on the one hand and , 

 South Africa on the other ; and doubtless that between Africa and 

 India was injuriously affected by the civil and religious dissensions of 

 Sunni Magdakshu and Shiite Kilwa. 



Al Idrisy or Edrisi, a Spanish Moor, who flourished circa 1153, 

 although he travelled in northern Africa, and possil)ly on the Atlantic 

 coast of Morocco, apparently never visited Eastern seas ; and his de- 

 scription of the Zeng, theii- iron trade with India, and their preference 

 of brass to gold, is prol)ably derived fi'om no later sources than Al 

 Mas'udy and Ibn al Wardy. 



Anyhow, as the country of the Zeng became less frequented by 

 shipmen and merchants it l)egan to be once more shrouded in the mists of 

 legend, which actual observation did not altogether dissipate. Probably 

 hostilities between the Moslem traders on the islands of Kilwa, Pemba, 

 Zanzibar, Mombasa, etc., and the Bantu of the mainland, led to exag- 

 gerated notions generated by ignorance ; for when Marco Polo reached 

 the country of the Zinzi he describes the people as of extraoi-dinary 

 size, perfecth' black, with thick lips and fiizzy hair, large ears, enormous 

 mouth and frightful eyes, so hideous that in any other country they 

 would be possessed with demons. More sober are the statements that 

 they have a language of their own, go entirely naked, live on dates, 

 milk, rice and meat, use elephants in war, possess tlocks of black-headed 

 sheep and carry on a considerable trade in amber and i\ory. So we 

 have Jordanus de Severac, Bishop of Quilon, telling us that he has 

 "seen many of them; they are very black, pot-bellied, fat but short, 

 having thick lips, squab noses, overhanging forehead and hideous coun- 

 tenances, while they go entirely naked ; they hunt the most savage 

 beasts, such as lions, ounces, leopards and most dreadful serpents; wild 

 men they be, wild against wild beasts!" 



Ibn Batuta, a learned Moor of Tangiers, a great tia\eller and an 



