340 CINNAMON REGION OF EASTERN AFRICA. 
ful examination of ancient authors, proves that the Sabseans 
were but the carriers, not the producers, of these aromatics. 
Herodotus includes under the general term Arabia the 
whole territory east of the Nile, and in giving his semi- 
fabulous account of the mode of collecting cinnamon, had 
included not the peninsula of Arabia, but the African part 
east of the Nile. Besides Herodotus, a long list of ancient 
authors may be quoted as supporting this view of the sub- 
ject, viz: Eratosthenes, Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, (the 
author of the Penplus) Philostorgius, Cosmas, Indico- 
pleustes, — all of whom agree in placing the region of Cinna- 
mon at the eastern extremity of Africa. Theophrastus (the 
disciple of Aristotle.) Galen, and Dioscorides, all state that 
the best cinnamon was derived from Mosyllnm. Arabia 
Felix owed its great prosperity to its carrying trade ; and 
in Ezekiel we are informed that the Sabseans traded in Tyre 
" with the chief of all spices/*' In the inscription of Adulis 
(A. D. 330) copied by Cosmas, mention is made of (< the 
tribes of the Rausi, who occupy the immense plains adja- 
cent to the region of Frankincense and we have no diffi- 
culty in recognising in these Rausi the present Arusi, occu- 
pying the hills around the sources of the Webbe, and who 
are described as one of the gre^t tribes of the Gala. The 
commerce of this country underwent, at length, the most 
violent changes, and the original population has been 
driven back by the influx of Arabs and Mohammedan 
tribes, (the Somali.) In an Egyptian papyrus dating as far 
back as the reign of Menephthah the Third, (B. C. 1100,) 
Dr. E. Hincks has discovered a mandate respecting the pur- 
chase of aromatics from the land of Arus or Arusa; and in 
coupling the local name and the merchandize, we can but 
conclude that Egypt three thousand years ago obtained a 
supply of aromatic drugs from the Analitic Gulf, This fact 
throws perhaps some light on the historical tradition " that 
Sesostris led an expedition to, and left graven monuments 
in, that quarter." That a country named at so early a 
