290 AEABS ON THE EAST COAST. 



gulations, holding a position resembling that of the 

 Gothic generals who placed Libius Severus and Augus- 

 tulus upon the throne ; of the mayors of the palace 

 beside the Merovingian princes ; of the Company's ser- 

 vants at the court of the Great Mogul. And when 

 the Mahometans had become numerous, and a fitting 

 season had arrived, the sheik would point out a well- 

 known Koran text, and would proclaim war against 

 the surrounding pagan kings, and so the movement 

 which had been commenced by the school would be 

 continued by the sword. 



It may, however, be doubted whether the Arab 

 merchants alone would have spread Islam over the 

 Nicer plateau. On the east coast of Africa they have 

 possessed settlements from time immemorial. Before 

 the Greeks of Alexandria sailed into the Indian Ocean ; 

 before the Tyrian vessels, with Jewish supercargoes, 

 passed through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabs 

 of Yemen had established factories in the Mozambique, 

 and on the opposite coast of Malabar, and carried on a 

 trade between the two lands, selling to the Indians ivory, 

 ebony, slaves, bees-wax, and gold-dust, brought down 

 in quills from the interior by the negroes, to whom 

 they sold in return the sugar, beads, and blue cotton 

 goods of Hindostan. In the period of the caliphs 

 these settlements were strengthened and increased, in 

 consequence of civil war, by fugitive tribes from Oman, 

 and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The emi- 

 grants made Africa their home ; they built large towns, 

 which they surrounded with orchards of the orange 

 tree, and plantations of the date ; they introduced the 

 culture of tobacco, sugar-cane, and cotton. They were 

 loved and revered by the negroes : they made long 

 journeys into the interior for the purposes of trade. 



