Oman ventures, seconded by those of
Yemen, reached as far south as east. The trading stations of Madisha and
Barawa were established on the Somali coast of East Africa in 908, and
Kilwa 750 miles further south in 925. In the seventeenth century the
Oman Arabs dislodged the intruding Portuguese from all this coast belt
down to the present northern boundary of Portuguese East Africa. Even so
late as 1850 their capital, Mascat, sent out fine merchantmen that did
an extensive carrying trade, and might be seen loading in the ports of
British India, in Singapore, Java, and Mauritius.

[Sidenote: Soil of coastlands as factor.]

Brittany's active part in the maritime history of France is due not only
to its ragged contour, its inshore and offshore islands, its forward
location on the Atlantic which brought it near to the fisheries of
Newfoundland and the trade of the West Indies, but also to the fact that
the "Golden Belt," which, with but few interruptions, forms a band of
fertility along the coast, has supported a denser population than the
sterile granitic soils of the interior,[476] while the sea near by varied
and enriched the diet of the inhabitants by its abundance of fish, and
in its limy seaweed yielded a valuable fertilizer for their gardens.[477]
The small but countless alluvial deposits at the fiord heads in Norway,
aided by the products of the sea, are able to support a considerable
number of people. Hence the narrow coastal rim of that country shows
always a density of population double or quadruple that of the next
density belt toward the mountainous interior, and contains seventeen out
of Norway's nineteen towns having more than 5,000 inhabitants.[478] It is
this relative fertility of the coastal regions, as opposed to the
sterile interior, that has brought so large a part of Norway's people
in contact with the Atlantic and helped give them a prominent place in
maritime history.

[Sidenote: Barren coast of fertile hinterland.]

Occasionally an infertile and sparsely inhabited littoral bordering a
limited zone of singular productivity, especially if favorably located
for international trade, will develop marked maritime activity, both in
trade and commercial colonization. Such was Arabian Yemen, the home of
the ancient Sabaeans on the Red Sea, stretching from the Straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb north-westward for 500 miles. Here a mountain range,
rising to 10,000 feet and bordering the plateau desert of central
Ara