Chapter QUAMOCLIT to QUILOA of Q by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

QUILOA, n.p. i.e. Kilwa, in lat. 9° O’ S., next in remoteness to Sofala, which for a long time was the ne plus ultra of Arab navigation on the East Coast of Africa, as Capt. Boyados was that of Portuguese navigation on the West Coast. Kilwa does not occur in the Geographies of Edrisi or Abulfeda, though Sofala is in both. It is mentioned in the Roteiro, and in Barros’s account of Da Gama’s voyage. Barros had access to a native chronicle of Quiloa, and says it was founded about A.H. 400, and a little more than 70 years after Magadoxo and Brava, by a Persian Prince from Shiraz.

1220.—“Kilwa, a place in the country of Zenj, a city.”—Yakut, (orig.), iv. 302.

c. 1330.—“I embarked at the town of Makdashan (Magadoxo), making for the country of the Sawahil, and the town of Kulwa, in the country of the Zenj….”—Ibn Batuta, ii. 191. [See under SOFALA.]

1498.—“Here we learned that the island of which they told us in Mocombiquy as being peopled by Christians is an island at which dwells the King of Mocombiquy himself, and that the half is of Moors, and the half of Christians, and in this island is much seed-pearl, and the name of the island is Quyluee….”—Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama, 48.

1501.—“Quilloa è cittade in Arabia in vna insuletta giunta a terra firma, ben popolata de homini negri et mercadanti: edificata al modo nro: Quiui hanno abundantia de auro: argento: ambra: muschio: et perle: ragionevolmente vesteno panni de sera: et bambaxi fini.”—Letter of K. Emanuel, 2.

1506.—“Del 1502…mandò al viaggio naue 21, Capitanio Don Vasco de Gamba, che fu quello che discoperse l’India…e nell’ andar de li, del Cao de Bona Speranza, zonse in uno loco chiamato Ochilia; la qual terra e dentro uno rio….”—Leonardo Ca’ Masser, 17.

1553.—“The Moor, in addition to his natural hatred, bore this increased resentment on account of the chastisement inflicted on him, and determined to bring the ships into port at the city of Quiloa, that being a populous place, where they might get the better of our ships by force of arms. To wreak this mischief with greater safety to himself he told Vasco da Gama, as if wishing to gratify him, that in front of them was a city called Quiloa, half peopled by Christians of Abyssinia and of India, and that if he gave the order the ships should be steered thither.”—Barros, I. iv. 5.

1572.—

“Esta ilha pequena, que habitamos,
He em toda esta terr certa escala
De todos os que as ondas navegamos
De Quilóa, de Mombaça, a de Sofala.”

Camões, i. 54.

By Burton:

“This little island, where we now abide,
of all this seaboard is the one sure place
for ev’ry merchantman that stems the tide
from Quiloa, or Sofala, or Mombas.…”

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