558 OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERIPLUS. 
comprehensible description of the Periplus, that the continent was 
adjacent to it on both sides ; and the assertion of Cosmas, that it was 
but two miles distant from the mainland, an assertion that Dr Vincent 
could not reconcile with the two hundred stadia of the Periplus. 
The islands called Alalaiou, many in number, small and sandy, 
still remain a memorial of the accuracy of the original describer, 
and may be found in Captain Court's chart, surrounding the island 
of Dhalac. Were any additional evidence necessary to prove that 
Aduli was situated in the Bay of Massowah, a very strong presump- 
tive argument might be drawn from the fact, that the great export 
trade of Abyssinia in ivory and rhinoceros' horns, and the imports 
in European and Indian articles, still continue to find their way 
through the same passes of the mountains to Massowah, and that 
the elephants still are, occasionally, but rarely, seen in the neigh- 
bourhood of Ras Gedam. 
Since my return to England, I have been very much astonished 
by the singular theory which Monsieur Gosselin has advanced, in 
his Recherches sur la Geographic des Anciens, and by which he 
has carried the Bay of Aduli to Assab, where the whole coast is 
covered with low, sandy islands, and reefs of coral, without a single 
point of resemblance to the description of the Periplus. M. Gos- 
selin might have been aware that, as it was a journey of only eight 
days from Aduli to Axum, the latter place could never have been 
at Assab, a distance of above three hundred miles; neither was it 
probable that the Romans would have passed so excellent an 
harbour as Massowah, where a ready communication existed with 
their chief mart at Axum, by a journey of little more than one 
hundred miles, and proceed three hundred miles farther, by sea, 
