Zeila in 1854 was a small thriving trade town with a dilapidated wall
Evidence
The dimensions of Zeila Burton compares to Suez, sufficient to hold a few thousand inhabitants, and provided with six mosques, a dozen large white-washed stone houses, and two hundred or more thatched mud-and-wattle huts. The ancient wall of coral rubble and mud defending the town was no longer fortified with guns, and in many places had become dilapidated. Drinking water had to be fetched from wells four miles from the town. Yet trade was thriving: to the north caravans plied the Danakil country, while to the west the lands of the ‘Ise and Gadabursi clans were traversed as far as Harar, and beyond Harar to the Gurage country in Abyssinia. The main exports were slaves, ivory, hides, horns, ghee, and gums. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 120