Historian Basil Davidson reports on the Swahili cities which peppered the East coast of Africa from Somalia to Mozambique. They brought traders from further up the African Coast up to the Red Sea (1 Kings 10:26-28). These Africans were masters of the sea, displaying nautical skills way beyond that of their European contemporaries. This enabled them to monoplise trade across the Indian Ocean, just like the Berbers controlled the Sahara trade routes. Davidson looks at the architecture and advanced house design of these cities