the sultanates and republics of 

Merca, Mogadishu, Barawa, Hobyo and their respective ports

flourished and had a lucrative foreign commerce, with ships sailing to and coming from Arabia,
India, Venetia,[77] Persia, Egypt, Portugal, and as far away as China. Vasco da Gama, who
passed by Mogadishu in the 15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses several
storeys high and large palaces in its centre, in addition to many mosques with cylindrical
minarets.[78] The Harla, an early Hamitic group of tall stature who inhabited parts of Somalia,
Tchertcher and other areas in the Horn, also erected various tumuli.[79] These masons are
believed to have been ancestral to ethnic Somalis. [80]
In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya in
modern-day India sailed to Mogadishu with cloth and spices, for which they in return received
gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and
fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants. [81] Mogadishu,
the center of a thriving textile industry known as toob benadir (specialized for the markets in
Egypt, among other places[82]), together with Merca and Barawa, also served as a transit stop
for Swahili merchants from Mombasa and Malindi and for the gold trade from Kilwa.
[83]
 Jewish merchants from the Hormuz brought their Indian textile and fruit to the Somali coast in
exchange for grain and wood.[84]