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(tom. i. l. ii. p. 159 - 167, l. iii. p. 211 - 216, edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1112 - 1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122 - 1132, from Artemidorus,) Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927 - 969,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi. 32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom. iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125 - 128) from the Geography of the Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the version or abridgment (p. 24 - 27, 44 - 56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators, Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la Palestine par La Roque, p. 265 - 346,) have opened to us the Arabia of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3. The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438 - 455) and Niebuhr (Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p. 416 - 510) has compiled with judgment, and D'Anville's Maps (Orbis Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l'Asie) should lie before the reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208 - 231.

Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer who called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the intelligent, the enterprising the accurate Burckhardt. - M.]

[Footnote 3: Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit. Wells.)]

[Footnote 4: Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,

1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of the Indian Ocean.

2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59 - 117.)]

[Footnote 5: In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route of the Hadjees, in Shaw's Travels, p. 477.]

[Footnote 6: The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense, of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet (Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors that are blown by the north- east wind from the Sabaean coast: -

- Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]

[Footnote 7: Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro, p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description, p. 124.)

Note: A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the traditions of the "gorgeous east," of India as well as Arabia, are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut. Wellsted - M.]

[Footnote 8: Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty- eight notes form a classic and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]

The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, ^9