testimonies of the Scriptures, and the classics, when they unite in describing the long-forgotten fruitfulness of the now waste and desolated hills of Judea. The geographical acquaintance with Arabia, actually possessed by the ancients, is properly, however, a question, not of theory, but of fact. And our first legitimate step towards ascertaining the extent of their knowledge, will be, to form a correct estimate of their opportunities and means of acquiring it. Now it is certain, in the first place, that far greater facilities of intercourse must have existed throughout the peninsula in its pagan state, than could possibly, from the nature of the case, obtain in Mahometan Arabia. From the uniform testimony of antiquity, it seems further certain, that a free intercourse with the Arabian peninsula, both on the coasts, and in the interior, was, from their first rise as a commercial people, carried on by the Greeks. Thus Agatharchides, when speaking of the hospitable character of the Dedebæ, a nation on the coast of Hedjáz, adds, that their hospitality was not indiscriminate; that it was peculiarly exercised towards the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, on account, as he further states, of a certain tradition, affirming their descent from one com mon stock.* And Pliny notices the existence of a similar tradition, relating to the inland nations of the Minai and Rhadamæi; who, according to his authorities, deduced their names from Minos and Rhadamanthus, and their fabled origin from Crete. In both instances we easily recognize, under the thin veil of classical fiction, the important historical fact, of the existence of an open trade, between the Greeks and Arabs, from very remote times, and of all the facilities implied by commercial intercommunity. Neither were the opportunities of acquiring information, enjoyed by the Greeks, limited to naval commercial intercourse; since we learn, from unexceptionable authorities, that this enterprizing people early founded flourishing colonies, and erected prosperous seats of commerce, in various parts of the peninsula. Pliny, in particular, specifies three Grecian marts on the Persian Gulf, as having, long before his time, fallen victims to the ravages of war: the cities, namely, of Arethusa, Larissa, and Chalcis; names indicating, severally, the emigrations of colonists from Sicily, Thessaly, and Eubœa.‡ * Agatharch. de Rubro Mari, apud Geograph. Vet. Script. Min. tom. i. p. 59. ed. Oxon. 1698. + Hist. Nat. lib. vi. s. 32. tom. ii. pp. 718, 719. ed. Paris, 1828. 8vo. f It may throw light, historically, on these alleged Grecian settlements, to notice the fact, that Strabo makes mention of an Arab colony, The particulars here briefly adverted to, may, in some measure, serve as a clue to the superior advantages possessed by the ancients, for acquiring a correct geographical knowledge of Arabia; and of the naines, characters, and habits of the divers races which composed its mingled population. We proceed to inquire, whether the geographers of Greece and Rome used those advantages; and with what success. For the present writer, however, scientific researches would have no charm, were they not connected with subjects of a far higher strain. Arabia opens a field for better things than curious speculations: it is the country of the first post-diluvian patriarchs,... the nursery of the earliest ancient prophets,... the soil in which the primitive families of mankind were originally planted, by the finger of God. Whatever interest, therefore, Arabian geography may possess, in the eyes of the scholar, or of the votary of science, it has paramount claims on the attention of the Christian theologian. In this aspect it which accompanied Cadmus into Greece, and settled in Euboea. But Chalcis was the capital of Eubœa; a circumstance, directly connecting with Euboea the Greek city of the same name, on the Persian Gulf. Strabo's account seems to explain satisfactorily the friendly commercial relations between the Greeks and Arabs, as well as strikingly to elucidate the national traditions of their common origin, noticed by nearly all the ancient geographers. On this subject, see Part I. § vi. was, that the present subject first engaged the thoughts of the writer, in connection with a former work. The wanton cavils of infidelity, against the Mosaic account of the peopling of Arabia, induced him to direct, so far as the nature and limits of that work permitted, his serious attention to a comparative survey of the historical authorities, sacred and profane, with a view to the establishment of one great point, contested by Mr. Gibbon and his imitators,... the "Descent of the Arabs from Ishmael." The satisfactory results obtained, even from so limited an investigation, together with the favourable reception which this codicil to "Mahometanism Unveiled "* experienced from the public, naturally led him on, at leisure intervals, to a more extended collation of those wholly independent witnesses, the sacred, and the classic writers. And accordingly, as, in the progress of this inquiry, the Scriptures of the Old Testament were gradually compared with the Greek and Roman geographers, and both authorities with the materials supplied by the Oriental geographers, and by modern atlases and travels, . the author found opening upon him a consent of evidences, and a concurrence of testimonies, altogether beside and beyond anticipation. * Appendix, Nos. I. II. All, or nearly all, the names and nations mentioned, in the Mosaic records, and in the later Scriptures, as springing from the five great patriarchal stocks of Cush, Joktan, Ishmael, Keturah, and Esau, successively disclosed themselves, in the pages of Ptolemy and Pliny, when disencumbered, only, of their Greek or Latin terminations, as the names of the chief tribes and nations, which, in their day, still inhabited Arabia. Nor did the triumphant testimony thus borne to the truth of Scripture history, rest or pause here. On a more exact scrutiny, it plainly appeared, further, that the great majority of Arab tribes enumerated by classic writers, and not mentioned in Scripture, were nothing more than branches and subdivisions of the great patriarchal families; whose "local habitation," and whose generic names, the sacred penman and the heathen authorities unite in recording and handing down: while, on comparison, lastly, of the classical nomenclature, with that supplied by modern geographers and travellers, the subordinate names, just alluded to, re-appear on the scene, as the actual denominations, at the present hour, of the chief existing tribes and families of the peninsula.* * The names of the Arab tribes are of very various origin: sometimes patronymic, sometimes territorial, and sometimes characteristic. In |