IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
•
* 0.
•
•
CHAP. XXXVI. TIIE PROVINCE OF ADEN
441
This cut, from a sketch by Dr. Kirk, gives an excellent idea of Aden as seen by a ship approaching from India. The large plate again, reduced from a grand and probably unique contemporary wood-engraving of great size, shows the impression that the city made upon European eyes in the beginning of the 16th century. It will seem absurd, especially to those who knew Aden in the early days of our occupation, and no doubt some of the details are extravagant, but the general impression is quite consonant with that derived from the description of De Barros and Andrea Corsali : " In site and aspect from the seaward," says the former, " the city forms a beautiful object, for besides the part which lies along the shore with its fine walls and towers, its many public buildings and rows of houses rising aloft in many stories, with terraced roofs, you have all that ridge of mountain facing the sea and presenting to its very summit a striking picture of the operations of Nature, and still more of the industry of man." This historian says that the prosperity of Aden increased on the arrival of the Portuguese in those seas, for the Mussulman traders from Jidda and the Red Sea ports now dreaded these western corsairs, and made Aden an entrepôt, instead of passing it by as they used to do in days of unobstructed navigation. This prosperity, however, must have been of very brief duration. Corsali's account of Aden (in 1517) is excellent, but too long for extract. Makrizi, IV. 26-27 ; Playfair, H. of Yemen, p. 7 ; Ibn Batuia, II. 177 ; De Barros, II. vii. 8 ; Ram. I. f. 182.)
NOTE 4. —I have not been able to trace any other special notice of the part taken by the Sultan of Yemen in the capture of Acre by the Mameluke Sultan, Malik Ashraf Khalil, in 1291. Ibn Ferat, quoted by Reinaud, says that the Sultan sent into all the provinces the most urgent orders for the supply of troops and machines ; and there gathered from all sides the warriors of Damascus, of Hamath, and the rest of Syria, of Egypt, and of Arabia. (Michaud, Bibl. des Croisades, 1829, IV. 569.)
~
View of Aden
•
. 4
~
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.