Page 410 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

XIX.] SOUTHERN ARABIA. 383

time a nourishing port*, Iii the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries it main­

tained an extensive trade with India and
China, and was then the entrepot of the
riches of the East; but it appears to have
reached the height of its prosperity in the
sixteenth century.
In order to maintain the trade against the
Portuguese, who had lately made their ap­
pearance in India, Sultan Gury, the last
Mameluke sovereign of Egypt, and Solyman
the Magnificent, took possession of the va­
rious ports in Arabia. To dispossess them
of these, a naval force was equipped in Eu­

rope, and placed under the orders of the
celebrated Albuquerque, who, however, no
sooner saw Aden than he perceived the diffi­
culty of conducting any operations against it.

* It appears to have been known to the Greeks under the name
of Arabia Felix, which it is thought was imposed by that people
in consequence of its being the capital of a district to which they
had applied the same appellation. Its inhabitants then secured an
enormous profit by conveying in large vessels of their own con­
struction the merchandise of India to Egypt; but some time after
the direct passage from Egypt to India was discovered by the
Ptolomies, one of the Roman emperors, in order to secure the mo­
nopoly to that province, caused Aden to be destroyed: at what
time it was rebuilt I know not.