of Akko on the sea—but Glaser thinks it may have been farther north, near Tyre.
28. Aloes, a bitter cathartic, being the dried juice exuded from Aloe Perryi, Baker, order Liliaceae. This was from very early times an important article of commerce, and was produced almost entirely in Socotra. Another variety, less in demand, was from Aloe hepatica, native in South Arabia, particularly in the Hadramaut valley, but also as far as northern Oman. The failure of the Periplus to mention Socotrine aloes is surprising, unless the product of the island was monopolized in Cana. This is quite possible, as the island was subject to the Hadramaut.
In modern times these and many other varieties are in use, both wild and cultivated, throughout the tropics. Bent (Southern Arabia, p. 381) found very little aloes collected in Socotra, but many fields enclosed by walls, where it had formerly been produced. He describes the ancient method still used to produce the gum; the thick leaves piled up until the juice exudes of their own weight, then allowed to dry in the sun for six weeks and finally packed in skins for shipment.
29. The Bay of Sachalites.—Until the Arabian coast was surveyed, there was an erroneous idea held by all the geographers, of deep indentation in the coast-line between Ras el Kelb (14° 0′ N., 48° 45′ E.) and Ras Hasik (17° 23′ N., 55° 10′ E.), midway between Ras Fartak, or Syagrus (14° 0′ N., 52° 55′ E.) bisected the supposed gulf. The error is very evident in Ptolemy's observations, which make Ras Fartak one of the most striking features of the coast, whereas its actual projection is unimportant, and its height less than that of the ranges farther east.
The name as applied in § 29 seems to apply to this whole strip of coast; in § 32 that part of it lying east of Ras Fartak is subdivided as the district of Omana; but in § 33 the name is resumed. This accords with the Arab geographers, whose Shehr extended beyond Dhofar.
The word Sachalites is Hellenized from the Arabic Sahil, "coast," the same word tht appears in East Africa as Sawahil, where the natives are called Swahili. This narrow strip of coast plain was different topographically and ethnologically from the Valley of Hadramaut.
The mediaeval form of the word was Sheher or Shehr, and the mediaeval port that replaced Cana was Es-shehr (the Escier of Marco Polo).
Ibn Khaldun (Kay's translation, p. 180) has the following account of this coast: "Ash-Shihr is, like Hijaz and Yaman, one of
