Chapter II. Arabia.^*

We will now leave the Mesopotamian basin, and inquire more particularly into that branch of the great Cushite race which had originally settled, and had subsequently been reinforced, in Arabia, that mysterious region, as Dr. Brugsch writes, which, in the ages before all history, sent forth the migratory Cushite races like swarms of locusts across the sea to set foot on the highly favoured shores of Punt and the Holy Land, so called on the Egyptian monuments. The evidence is abundant that this country was settled at nearly as early a period in the world's history as the valleys of the Mesopotamian rivers; and the resident populations would be constantly increased by the immigrations of their relations in the North, who would flee from the incessant invasions of the Elamites and other Semite races, whose attacks on Akkadia seem to been perpetually renewed, until the Chaldæan power was finally subverted.

No doubt war was in those days conducted with great barbarity. The Egyptian inscriptions seem to teach us that the magnitude of a victory was estimated by the number of hands (if the deceased were circumcised), and of members (if the deceased were uncircumcised), which were presented to Pharaoh after the battle was over. Each wave of hostile invasion would not only entail the destruction of multitudes of people, but would cause the emigration of more, who would seek safety in abandoning their country and adopting fresh homes. Thus vast numbers of the population of Shinar would flee from their cities on the approach of Kudur-Nankhaunte; and as he came from the northerly parts, the refugees would naturally endeavour to escape southwards. Each successive attack would cause renewed emigration, and the numbers of the Cushite inhabitants of Shinar must have been greatly reduced when the expedition of Sargina finally extinguished the Cushite power, and probably drove a large proportion of the remaining population to seek refuge among their kinsmen in the south of Arabia. The exodus which had already commenced from Ur and the cities of Shinar would be greatly accelerated by the "justice" of this Semitic conqueror. The Cushites, now mixed by their long sojourn with Turanian and Semitic peoples, fled down by both shores of the Persian Gulf, the great bulk of the refugees doubtless going by water; for Ur was a great and wealthy city, and the ships of Ur had long traversed the seas in pursuit of gain. Passing by places which were adjacent to the territories now possessed by Sargon, they occupied lands in Arabia, on one side of the gulf, and in Karman, or Carmania, on the other. Large contingents continued their course along the south-east coast of Arabia, becoming absorbed in the existing settlements as they progressed; and considerable bodies then and at later periods passed over the straits into Africa, where they settled in cities there already important, and which, a thousand years later on, furnished Egypt with Pharaohs. This great movement was in full vigour about the time of Abram, though detachments had no doubt started at an earlier period, under the pressure of the first Kudur-Nankhaunte wars, and it had been completed before the year 1700; for at that page 24 time, Professor Sayce assures us, the Akkadian language had ceased to be spoken in Chaldæa. It is not to be supposed, however, that all the people moved away. No doubt, as is usual in such cases, the poorer sort remained, and became absorbed in the intruding race, who imposed only their language, and in return adopted, "from the subjugated people, its mythology, laws, literature, and almost every art of civilisation."

This emigration has not been unnoticed by the classical writers. Strabo, quoting Eratosthenes, says that there lies in a deep gulf of the Erythræan, or Red Sea, as was then its name, a city of the name of Gerrha, belonging to "Chaldæan exiles from Babylon." This city may have been named after the town of Erech in Shinar, the initial guttural being added. It is indeed probable that the emigrants called the new cities which they founded after the names of their former homes in Shinar. Thus the Akkadian Kalunu (Semitic Calneh) reappears as Karana, the chief city of the Minæi, a portion of the nation which bore the general name of Sabæa. This city is mentioned by Eratosthenes. Uru or Urunu may be the protonom of Hulu or Zula, a maritime city of Ethiopia, in a bay of the Red Sea, called by classical writers Adule. Akane, the biblical Akkad, may have given its name to Agane, on the extreme easterly point of Africa, a town mentioned by Ptolemy, whence probably the Indian fleets started. Sippara may be reproduced in the town called by Ptolemy Sapphara though it is mentioned in the Periplus under the name of Aphar . Its present name is Saphar. It is very difficult to trace names, for our only sources of information of the geography of Arabia Felix at this period are the classical writers; and under their manipulation vernacular names became so mutilated, that identification must be tedious and uncertain. How great was the change may be gathered from the example of Cush, or Etaush, having been softened, as Rawlinson says, into Ethiopia. Having no sound in their language like sh, the Greeks used the ψ, and softened the t into θ; thus Etausch became Aithiops, and the country Aithiopia.

It appears, then, that Arabia was peopled by a race of men of Cushite descent, with a considerable commingling of Semite blood, with slighter traces of Turanian and even Arian consanguinity, resulting from prolonged contiguous sojourning in the plains of Shinar. They dwelt in tribes, in some of which the Semite descent was more decidedly marked than in others—doubtless the complexion varying with the predominance of the respective types. With this position the genealogical statement contained in the tenth chapter of Genesis entirely agrees. It will be well at this place to notice this remarkable record.

"The time is gone by," says Canon Rawlinson, "when nothing more was seen in the list of names to be found in this chapter than a set of personal appellations, the proper names of individuals. No one can read with any attention the following passage, even in its English dress, without perceiving that the writer is bent rather on considering the connection of races than the descent of persons:—'And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Archite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.' The forms of the names are in many instances plural: Madai, Kithim, Dodanim or Rodanim, Sudim, Ananim, etc.; while in one remarkable instance there is a dual form, which is at once recognised as that of a country or people. 'Mizraim' is the word elsewhere translated throughout Scripture Egypt. It signifies the two Egypts, Upper and Lower, whence the monumental Egyptian kings wear upon their heads two crowns. And it is worthy of notice that the majority of the names in the chapter, if they occur elsewhere in the Bible, occur in an ethnic or else in a geographic sense. Gomer, Magog, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Togarmah, Kittim, Cush, Sheba, Elam, etc., are all of them in every other place either countries or nations. We read of Gomer and his bands (Ezek.), 'the land of Magog' (Ezek.), the 'isles of Elishah' (Ezek.), the 'men of Dedan' (Ezek.), the 'ships of Tarshish' (Kings), the 'queen of Sheba' (Kings), and the like. Shem, Ham, and Japhet are no doubt persons, the actual page 26 sons of the patriarch Noah; hut it may be doubted whether there is another name in the series which is other than ethnic."

I very humbly venture to think that the learned writer has carried his views too far. If I understand aright the last sentence, I gather that his meaning is that the names in Gen. x., with the exception of those stated, are ethnic solely, and not personal. It appears to me that, saving those where peoples are clearly named, such as the Hivite, Rodamin, etc., the names have both an ethnic and a personal application. It is the custom of early peoples to take their national designation from their ancestors, and even to deify them, and it would appear to me more reasonable to suppose that the names in the chapter were actually the names of men bearing the relationship set forth, and that these men were the eponyms of the people who descended from them, or who gathered around them. This is the almost invariable rule with the Maori tribes, whose names can all be traced to that of some ancestor, who was the founder of the clan, as it branched off from some older stock. The result of the learned canon's dictum, in the assertion of an historical fact, will not be very different from that produced by the view now advocated; but the absolute disbelief in the existence of the eponymic hero, the founder of the tribe, would occasion confusion, and injure the credit of, and diminish the assistance to be derived from, genealogies.^* It may be assumed, then, that the object of the author of this record was to furnish, not only a personal genealogy, but a sketch of the interconnection of races, and a general geographical description of the countries settled by them.

The remarks which now follow, on the tenth chapter of Genesis, are drawn principally from Canon Rawlinson's "Origin of Nations;" but it will be well, before proceeding to investigate the scheme of territorial settlement of the descendants of Cush and Shem, as therein set forth, to notice that at the period in the world's history when the sacred historian wrote his genealogy the dispersal of mankind had been more or less accomplished. Many of the Japhetic races were still, no doubt, lingering around the Caspian

^* Vide Hearn's "Aryan Household."

page 27 Sea, but many had already moved away, as, for instance, the Celts and the Pelasgians, the most illustrious of them all. No one supposes that the record was written before the time of Moses—the fifteenth century; and by that time the tribes with whom we are now dealing were already in their places, and were founding or maintaining flourishing states. The author must therefore be presumed to be describing the order of settlement of peoples in the districts spoken of, as they were known to the Hebrews at his epoch, cataloguing each tribe by its then known name, as taken from their eponymic ancestors; and where there was a mixed descent, naming both ancestors.

Firstly; as to the Cushites, with only a small portion of whom we have to do. Ver. 7: "And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba and Dedan."

Seba. This name, which must not be confounded with Sheba, seems to have been applied in ancient times to a particular portion of the East African country which bore the general name of Cush or Ethiopia. Josephus says that Saba was the ancient name of the famous Ethiopian city of Meroë, and of the district about it. In Scripture we find Seba and the Sabæans usually connected with Ethiopia proper and with Egypt, as in Isaiah xliii. 3, xlv. 14: "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and of the Sabæans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee." There was another Saba in Arabia Felix, of which more hereafter; and again another, called by Strabo and the Greek geographers Sabai on the African coast, near the Straits of Babelmandeb. This town is still in existence under the name of Assab.

The Bible speaks of the Sabseans as "men of stature," and Herodotus remarks that the Ethiopians of his day had the character of being the tallest and handsomest nation in the world. And in another place, after speaking of the commercial value of their exports, he adds that the men were of large stature, very handsome, and long-lived.

The next name in the genealogy is Havilah. This name occurs in other places in Scripture, but a careful examination of the context has led to the conclusion amongst the learned that in none of them is the Havilah referred to which is here mentioned. But the people in question have been identified with the inhabitants of the Arabian tract known as Khawlán, in the north-western portion of the Yemen.

Then comes Sabtah. No other passage of Scripture throws any light on this name; but we may safely connect it with the Sabbatha or Sabota of Pliny and Ptolemy, which was on the south coast of Arabia, and was the capital of the Atramitæ, a people now (and probably then, vernacularly) called Hadramaut. Strabo also mentions the place, though he slightly changes the name of the people. Instead of Atramitæ he has Chatramotitæ, and he says that of four people composing a great nation these are the furthest towards the East. Their city he calls Sabata.

Sheba must undoubtedly be connected with the great race of the Sabæans, which as early as Solomon was the chief in Arabia, and which is greatly celebrated by the classical writers, as we shall see hereafter.

Dedan is to be sought eastward of Sheba, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, where the name seems still to linger in the island of Dadan on the border of the Gulf. The Dedanians are mentioned by Isaiah as sending out "travelling companies"—caravans, in fact—which lodged in the wilds of Arabia (xxi. 13), and Ezekiel enumerates them among the merchants who supplied Tyre with precious things (xxvii. 20). In this last quoted passage the people of Dedan are conjoined with Sheba and Raamah (v. 22), and also with those of Assyria and Chilmad in Babylonia (v. 23), so that the location of the Cushite Dedan in the immediate neighbourhood of Chaldæa and the Gulf would seem to be certain.^*

Sabtechah has not been safely identified.

The general conclusion to be drawn from Genesis x. mentioned is that the genealogist means to assign to the family of Cush that part of Arabia which borders on the Persian Gulf, or Erythræan Sea as it was called, and the whole of the south-east part of the peninsula now called Yemen or Arabia Felix, and a section of Africa on the other side of the Straits.

It was until recently commonly understood that the people of Arabia are of Semitic descent. Recent researches have upset this belief, so that modern ethnological science confirms the statement of the sacred genealogist. M. Antoine D'Abbadie, Dr. Beke, M. Fresnel, and others prove that there are to this day races in South Arabia, especially the Mahra, whose language is decidedly non-Semitic:^* that between this language and that of the Abyssinian tribes of the Galla, Agau, and their congeners, there is very considerable affinity.^† The Mahra, moreover, is proved by analysis to be the modern representative of an ancient form of speech found in inscriptions along the South Arabian coast, and known to philologists as Himyaric. These inscriptions are thought to be evidently of a high antiquity, and the Himyaric empire to which they are supposed to belong is carried back by some scholars to as high a date as 1750.

Thus it would seem to be distinctly made out, continues Canon Rawlinson, that Arabia contains, and has from a very remote time contained, at least two races—one in the northern and central regions, Semitic, speaking the tongue usually known as Arabic, and another in the more southern region, which is non-Semitic, and which, from the resemblance of its language to the dialects of the aboriginals of Abyssinia, the descendants of the ancient Ethiopians, deserves to be called Ethiopian or Cushite.

Baron Bunsen's theory of 1854 on this subject need not be noticed, as it is now exploded as completely as are the speculations of his countrymen respecting the Homeric poems, which they tried to show were not written by Homer, but another man of the same name. A laborious study of the primitive language of Chaldæa led Sir Henry Rawlinson to the conviction that the dominant race in old Babylonia at the earliest times to which monuments reached back was Cushite. He found the vocabulary of the primitive race to be decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian, and he interpreted the inscriptions chiefly by the aid which was furnished to him from published works on the Galla (Abyssinian) and the Mahra (South Arabian) dialects.

"Thus modem science agrees with the author of Genesis in uniting together as members of the same ethnic family the Ethiopians, the Southern Arabians, and the primitive inhabitants of Chaldæa. Ethiopic, as represented by the Galla, Agau, etc., Southern Arabian, Himyaric or Mahra (Himyaric is the classical form of Mahra), and ancient Babylonian are discovered to be cognate tongues, varieties of one original form of speech."

It has been previously stated that the nations of Southern Arabia were a mixed race, having a strong tinge of Semitic blood. The sacred genealogist confirms this view also. In stating the progeny of Shem the record says: "And Arphaxad (son of Shem) begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his day was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obal, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan."

Arab tradition makes Joktan, who in Arabic is called Kahtan, the great progenitor of all the purest tribes of Central Arabia; but the repetition of some of his progeny under names already assigned to the descendants of Cush clearly shows that, in the ethnical sense in which the genealogist is here writing, the people so designated were a mixed race.

Hazarmaveth is identical with the Arabic Hadramaut, which is still the name of a tract and people on the south-eastern coast of Arabia, between the Yemen and the Mahra country. The people were known to the Greeks and Romans as the Chattramotitæ, Chattramitæ, or Atramitæ. It will be remembered that they appeared among the Cushite families as represented by Sabtah, the name of the capital city (Sabata).

Sheba will be identified with the great and important people of the Sabæans, the most celebrated of all Arabia in ancient times. This is another instance of the occurrence of a name both here among the Joktanites and also among the descendants of Cush, designating that the Sabæans were a mixed race, composed partly of Cushite and partly of Joktanite, i.e., Semitic Arabs.

Havilah has also appeared among the descendants of Cush. Here, as in the case of Sheba, the Hamites and Shemites were intermingled, tribes descended from the two patriarchs having intermarried and blended together.

The other Joktanite clans peopled the central and northern parts of Arabia, and being pure Shemites do not concern our present inquiry. Rawlinson, in his "Herodotus," has a passage bearing on the peopling of Arabia: "Ethnologers are now agreed that in Arabia there have been three distinct phases of colonisation. First, the Cushite occupation recorded in Genesis x.; secondly, the settlement of the Joktanites, described in the same chapter; and thirdly, the entrance of the Ishmaelites, which must have been nearly synchronous with the establishment of the Jews in Palestine."

Before leaving our consideration of the tenth chapter of Genesis it may be well to repeat that the author, supposed to be Moses, described the settlement of the world known to him as it existed page 32 in his time, say B.C. 1500. During the centuries that followed there can be no doubt that the tribes of Arabia still further intermingled, though it may be taken for certain that the predominance of the two stocks varied considerably in different tribes; and although at a future period the several clans are found recognising the authority of one monarch, yet it does not appear that they ever entirely fused into one nation or lost their distinctive names or their tribal formation. On the contrary, there are evidences of wars amongst themselves, and the most northern portion of the people seem to have presented the character of marauding nomads at a period when the southern portion formed an important commercial and maritime state.^* (See Job i. 15, and other authorities.) Nor can it be affirmed that the expedition into Palestine in the reign of King Asa proves that the northern tribes had even then adopted the habits of civilisation and recognised any superior regulating authority, for the complete overthrow of such a vast host of men (stated in the Bible at one million) by such an insignificant military state as Judæa would indicate an entire absence of discipline and utter want of all the arts of war which civilisation supplies.

In speaking henceforth of the Cushites or Ethiopians, as thus influenced by mixture of Semite blood, it may be well to distinguish them by the general name of Sabaians, as it was the designation by which they were known to the surrounding nations, and was the title adopted by the classical writers, except where a portion only of the people was referred to, when the

^* I am very doubtful as to the strict accuracy of the latter part of this statement, depending as it does necessarily on the date of epoch of the patriarch Job. A careful examination of the text, and astronomical calculations founded on references to stars and constellations in the book, furnish evidence which justifies scholars in believing Job to be identical with Jobab, the son of Joktan, contemporary with Reu, the son of Peleg. His date would then be about 2338 B.C., three centuries and a half before the epoch of Abraham. The Sabæans at that time had undergone no mixture with the Joktanite or Semitic race; for Sheba, Hazarmaveth, and Havilah were brothers of Jobab. The marauding hordes of Sabæans, who desolated Job's home, were therefore pure Cushites, excepting the taint of alien blood which had been acquired before the dispersal from the plains of Shinar—probably in Peleg's time. The book of Job is the oldest as well as the grandest epic poem in the world.

page 33 name of the tribe would be used. The information about them is very unsatisfying during the long period of time that preceded the epoch of the Greek geographers. The national traditions tell unvaried tales of the opulence and grandeur of the nation, and these are more or less confirmed by the notices of military or pacific expeditions contained in the tomb pictures and temple writings of the Egyptians and the cuneiform inscriptions on the Assyrian tablets. Some of these it will be interesting to notice.

Hannu, the General of Sankh-kara, made a rock inscription relating the history of a voyage made by him to Ophir and Punt. "I was sent to conduct ships to the land of Punt, to fetch for Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices. . . . And I set out with an army of 3,000 men. ... I arrived at the Port of Seba, and I had ships of burthen built to bring back products of all kinds." (Brugsch: "Egypt.")

The front walls of the Stage Temple of Queen Hashop (about 1600 B.C.) were covered with coloured sculptures and inscriptions, of which an expedition by sea to the balsam land of Punt is conspicuous above all the rest. The Egyptians were acquainted from hearsay with the wonders of this distant region on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the home of the pine incense so much coveted for the service of the temples. A great number of seagoing ships were prepared and a landing was made on the coast of the "incense terraced mountain" (in the vicinity of Cape Guardafui, the Aromata Acron of the Greek writers).

The interviews between the Egyptian ambassadors and the native princes are described and pictured in great detail, and on their return "the ships were laden to the uttermost with the wonderful products of the land of Punt, and with the different precious woods of the divine land, and with heaps of the resin of incense, with fresh incense-trees, with ebony, (objects) of ivory set in pure gold from the land of Anu, with sweet woods, Khesitwood, with Ahem-incense, holy resin, and paint for the eyes, with dog-headed apes, with long-tailed monkeys and greyhounds, with leopard skins, and with natives of the country, together with their children."

Cape Guardafui is the point of Eastern Africa, already noticed as called Agade in ancient days.

The visit of the Queen of the Sabaians to Solomon, King of Israel, is very remarkable, as indicating that, amidst the splendid display which that monarch made of his wealth and magnificence, his royal visitor was astonished only at his wisdom. The queen arrived at Jerusalem "with a very great company, and camels that bare spices and gold in abundance and precious stones." "And when the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel . . . there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, It was a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom; . . . and, behold, one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me." "And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones." We are told further on that the total revenue of Solomon was 666 talents, so that the queen's present would indicate that she was the wealthier of the two potentates.

The great inscription of Tiglath Pileser II. refers also to the Sabaians: "The tribes of Maza, Tema, Saba ("Sabæans," Brugsch), etc., . . . at the boundaries . . of the setting sun, who knew no rivals, whose place was remote, the might of my dominion, . . . they heard, and submitted to my dominion. Gold, silver, camels, she camels, and gum, their tribute at once to my presence they brought, and kissed my feet."

From the same tablets we read: "Samsi, Queen of Arabia, in the country of Saba . . . the people who were in the midst of her camp, the might of my powerful soldiers overwhelmed her, and camels and she camels . . . her present to my presence she sent. A governor over her I appointed, and the people of Saba to my yoke I subdued. The cities of Mazha and Tema, of the Sabæans Hyappa Badana and Hatte of the Idibihitites, etc., . . . submitted to my dominion.

From the first part of the inscription it does not appear that the monarch actually invaded Arabia. The Sabaians seem to have submitted from reports of his greatness, but the second part leaves it undoubted that they were overcome by the "might of his powerful soldiers."

Arabia Felix was also pillaged as early as the seventeenth century by Thothmes III.; and again in the eighth and seventh centuries, in spite of its inaccessibility, its opulence excited the cupidity of Sargon II. and Sennacherib.

About 740 to 690 that section of the people who crossed over into Africa are found taking prominent part in the affairs of Egypt. As this episode in their history is briefly stated by Sharpe in his "History of Egypt," it will be desirable to quote the account from him:—"The island of Meroë sometimes formed part of the kingdom of Ethiopia, but was probably at other times independent. The river (Nile) within the bounds of Ethiopia makes two great bends, so that Napata, the capital, is separated on one side from Meroë by the desert Bahionda and on the other side from Egypt by the Nubian desert. The Nubians were of the same race as the Egyptians, though with a skin more copper-coloured, as living under a hotter sky; but the Ethiopians or southern part of the population were of an Arabic race, or in the language of the Old Testament, they were Cushites. Ethiopia had been for many years ruled over by the Egyptians. Napata was built at the foot of a steep sandstone mountain, on the right bank of the river. About two centuries before this time (740), soon after the death of Shishank, the Ethiopians had thrown off the Egyptian yoke; and now they marched forward, perhaps a second time, and conquered Egypt, and put Bacchoris (the king) to death. Sabacophth, the Ethiopian, then made himself king of nearly all Egypt." He was succeeded by Sevech, to whom, under the name of So, Hoshea, king of Israel, sent ambassadors with gifts. Tirhakah, or Tirkhak, whose name has been mentioned in connection with the word khak or hyk, succeeded to the throne, and inflicted a great defeat on Sennacherib, near Pelusium. No doubt this was a great satisfaction to Tirkhak, as affording "utu" page 36 (revenge) for the sufferings of his ancestors at the hands of Sennacherib's predecessor, Sargon I. Tirkhak reigned in great splendour, executed vast public works, and erected temples after the Egyptian fashion. However, after a domination of 50 years the reign of the Ethiopians ceased, as appears in consequence of a dream that the reigning king had, for they withdrew from the country. Herodotus ignores Sevech and Tirkhak, and makes Sabacon (as he calls him) reign during the whole 50 years.^*

I do not find that the Southern Arabians, though mentioned, are particularly noticed by Herodotus; but he has one passage with reference to the Ethiopians which, in such an accurate observer, is highly important. In enumerating the forces that accompanied Xerxes in his Greek invasion, he mentions the Ethiopians. He says:—"The Ethiopians from the sunrise (for two kinds served in the expedition) were marshalled with the Indians, and did not at all differ from the others in appearance, but only in their language and their hair. The eastern Ethiopians are straight-haired, but those of Lybia have hair more curly than that of any other people."

The learned writers of the present day often comment on the former grandeur and opulence of the mysterious country, Arabia Felix. Dr. Taylor in his "History of the Alphabet" writes:—"There is abundant evidence that Arabia Felix was the seat of one of the oldest civilisations of the world, and in the possession of great commercial wealth." In the fourteenth century B.C., the spices of Arabia Felix, and even silk from India, were brought to to Babylonia by the merchants of Yemen. . . . . . . The astonishment of travellers is still excited by the remains of vast aqueducts and terraced gardens, and the ruins of magnificent structures of hewn stone. In another place he says:—"From the tenth to the third century B.C. Yemen was the great central mart in which Indian products were exchanged for the merchandise of the west. Egypt would send cloth, papyrus and glass;

^* The name Sabacophth may have some connection with Saba, the ancient name of Meroë, as Josephus says. Mr. Sharpe's reference to Meroë appears to be to the district of that name.

page 37 Syria, wine, oil, and brass; Phœnicia, weapons and purple stuff; while, in exchange, the Indian coasting vessels brought ivory, gold, precious stones, and Indian wares."

For a prolonged period this lucrative traffic was in the hands of the Sabaians, and was the main source of their proverbial opulence. The trade between Egypt and Yemen began as early as 2300 B.C., and that between Yemen and India was established not later that 1000 B.C. Even in the time of the Ptolemies the trade was not direct, but passed through the hands of the Sabaians, who possessed extensive commerce and vessels. Their ports were frequented by trading vessels from all parts—from the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the coast of Africa, and especially from the mouth of the Indus. From the Periplus we learn that Aden was a great entrepôt of this commerce, while at the beginning of the second century B.C. the island of Dioscorides, off the Somali coast, was the centre of exchange for Indian products.

The Sabaians supplied Egypt and Syria from very remote periods with frankincense and aromatics. The Egyptians imported spices largely for the purpose of embalming their dead, and for the temple services; and the Phœnicians required them for the Syrian markets, since perfumes have been in all ages both favourite luxuries and among the most popular medicines of the East. The Romans were also large consumers of the aromatic gums of Arabia—required in the religious ceremonies.

. . . Centumque Sabæo

Thure calent aræ,—Æneid i. 416.

The Sabaians possessed for many centuries an absolute monopoly of Indian commerce; and even after Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 274) and his successors had made a communication with the Red Sea by means of the Coptos canal, though no longer the carriers of Indian exports to Egypt, they were still the importers of them from India itself. The Egyptian fleets proceeded no further than the haven of Sabbatha or Mariaba, while the Sabaians, long prior even to the voyage of Nearchus (B.C. 330) ventured across the ocean to Ceylon and the Malabar coast. Their vessels were of larger build than the ordinary merchant ships of the Greeks, and page 38 their mariners were more skilful and intrepid than the Greeks, who, it is recorded, shrank with terror from the Indian Ocean. The track of the Sabaian navigators lay along the coast of Gedrosia, since Nearchus found along its shores many Arabic names of places, and at Possem engaged a pilot acquainted with those seas. We may therefore fairly ascribe the extraordinary wealth of the Sabaians to their long monopoly of the Indian trade. (Donne in Dr. W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Tit. Saba.) Niebuhr ("Description de l'Arabie") asserts that Yemen neither produces, nor ever could have produced, gold. He states, moreover, that the native frankincense is of a very ordinary quality, Sabæa yielding only the species called Liban, while the better sorts of that gum are imported from Sumatra, Siam, and Java. The distance from which the superior kinds of myrrh, frankincense, nard, and cassia were fetched probably gave rise to the strange tales related about the danger of gathering them from the trees, with which the Sabaians regaled the Egyptian and Greek merchants, and through them the Greek geographers also.

Some fragments of information as to the existence and wide range, at the very earliest times, of commercial operation and intercourse, without which it is impossible to conceive of a state of society supplied with useful and ornamental articles, as no single locality could furnish all the requisites for these numerous and varied productions, may be elicited by referring to the early history of the Phoenicians, who were undoubtedly among the most ancient of nations, and eminently devoted to commercial pursuits. Dr. Hale has placed the foundation of Tyre, apparently with great accuracy, at B.C. 2267, and as that city was the offspring of Sidon, it is fair to presume that the Phœnician people were in a prosperous state even at that period. "This opinion is confirmed by other evidence (Smith's 'Patriarchal Age'). We know that the Phoenician Hercules undertook his expedition into the Western Ocean, and that the important colonies of Cadiz and Carthage were established long before the destruction of Troy, which, according to Dr. Hales, took place about the year B.C. 1183. It is certain, therefore, that important commercial intercourse page 39 with the West was carried on at a much earlier period. A further confirmation of this is obtained by reference to the era of Melcarthus's expedition, which, we are told, was three hundred years before Jason went to Colchis, and which, in the opinion of Hales, took place B.C. 1225. According to this account, therefore, the Phoenician Hercules sailed into the Western Ocean B.C. 1525; and, if so, there would be ample time in the ensuing two or three centuries for the consolidation of trade and the foundation of numerous colonies. We have strong corroboration of these dates in the fact that Moses, B.C. 1640, speaks of tin and lead being found amongst the spoils of the Midianites; and we have not the slightest evidence that these metals at that period were procured in any other country than in Spain and Britain."

"There are but two possible means of conveying the commodities of India to the West—one by land, through Persia or the provinces of the North, and the other by sea; and if by sea, Arabia must in all ages have been the medium through which this commerce passed, whether the Arabians went to Malabar itself or obtained these articles in Karmania or at the mouths of the Indus. . . .

"The Arabians have a sea-coast round three sides of their vast peninsular; they had no prejudices against navigators, either from habits or religion. There is no history which treats of them which does not notice them as pirates or merchants by sea, as robbers and traders by land. We scarcely touch upon them accidentally in any author without finding that they were the carriers of the Indian Ocean.

"Sabaia, Hadramaut, Oman were the residence of navigators in all ages, from the time that history begins to speak of them; and there is every reason to imagine that they were equally so before the historians acquired a knowledge of them, as they have since continued down to the present age."

Narratives of the classical writers amply show that the greatness of Sabaia had not declined in their time.^* Strabo writes not only from his own knowledge, for he is said to have accompanied the Roman army commanded by Ælius Gallus on the invasion of the country in the time of Augustus Cæsar, but he quotes largely from other writers, and very fortunately comments at considerable length about several cities of Arabia Felix bearing the name of Saba.

Describing Arabia passing down the Red Sea, he mentions the Nabatæi, Chaulotai, and Agraii, whom he calls Syrians and Jews, and accurately, no doubt. Nabatæans is the more usual designation. I called them some time back Joktanite Arabs. These people are succeeded, as we pass southwards, by the Scenitæ who

^* Sabæi, ad utraque maria porrecti.—Pliny.

page 41 had camels. Then he goes on: "Four of the most populous nations inhabit the extremity of the above-named country, namely, the Minæi, the part towards the Red Sea, whose largest city is Carna or Carnana (Calneh). Next to these are the Sabæans, whose chief city is Mariaba. The third nation is the Chattra-baneis, extending to the straits and the passage across the Arabian Gulf. Their royal seat is called Tamna. The Chatramotitæ are the farthest of these nations towards the east. Their city is Sabata.

"All these cities are governed by one monarch, and are flourishing. They are adorned with beautiful temples and palaces. Their houses, in the mode of binding the timbers together, are like those of Egypt. The four countries comprise a greater territory than the Delta of Egypt;" (in fact, six times as large, says the annotator). Gosselin, a learned scholiast, notes, "Mariaba was not the name of a city, but the title of a city acquired by the residence of their sovereigns. 'Mariana oppidum,' says Pliny, 'significat dominos oranum.'^* The capital was called Saba (now Sabbea), and the country in which it is situated is Sabieh." The remains of a monstrous reservoir there still astonish travellers. Strabo says that the above account (and much more not quoted) is given by Eratosthenes. "We must add," he goes on, "what is related by other writers. Artemidorus says the country of the Sabaioi is very populous, and is most fertile of all, producing myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon."

"Mariaba" (the same as Saba), "the capital of the Sabæans, is situated upon a mountain, well wooded. A king resides there, who determines absolutely all disputes and other matters; but he is forbidden to leave his palace" (a singular sort of tapu).^† He

^* Pliny does not say why Marisaba means "lords of all." Reference to the Maori language will afford an explanation. Maru means shelter, and secondarily protection or sovereignty. Marusaba would therefore be "the sovereignty of Saba" or the Sabaian people; i. e., the principal seat of government.

^† A Maori tohunga, i.e., priest (wizard would better translate the word) is very "tapu," but is not confined to his own house. He is not permitted to enter any other house, for the reason that his presence in it would make it "tapu" and unusable. A few months ago the Ngatiwhakaue tribe fetched from Wairoa a renowned tohunga, to remove the tapu from a piece of land, formerly a burial-ground, which was required as the site of a church; but though it was the middle of winter, and the nights were severely cold, the old man was compelled to sleep out of doors. "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." (Lucretius.)

page 42 goes on, "The people cultivate the ground and trade in spices. They sail through the straits in vessels covered with leather. They carry their goods as far as Syria and Mesopotamia." This account is quoted by Strabo from Artemidorus, derived by him from Agartharcides. Then follows a long account of an attack made by the Roman army under Ælius Gallus upon Mariaba, or Saba, apparently from cupidity, which caused great misery and considerable loss of life, ten thousand having fallen in one engagement, but which ultimately failed most disastrously.

Strabo speaks of yet another Saba on the African side of the Sabæan dominions: "Next to the harbour of Antiphilus, called the grove of the Colobi, the city of Berenice of Sabæa, and a considerable city (now Assab). Bordering on these people is a nation blacker in complexion than the others, shorter in stature, and very short-lived."

There are traces of another Saba, spoken of as Saba a port, in the Gulf of Matzua, down the Red Sea, also in Africa. But Gosselin says, "I am not acquainted with these places. Was there a town Saba, which gave its name to the Sabaitic Gulf? but the one in question does not appear to have been situated there."

Smith, in his Classical Dictionary, sums up the learning on this mysterious Saba or Sabai thus: (the Old Testament Sheba), the capital of the Sabæi in Arabia Felix, lay on a high woody mountain, and was pointed out by an Arabian tradition as the residence of the Queen of Sheba, who went to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon; its exact site is doubtful.

"2. There was another city of the same name in the interior of Arabia Felix, where a place called Sabea is still found, about in the centre of El Yemen.

"3. A seaport town of Æthiopia, on the Red Sea, south of Ptolemais Haron.

"A town called and is mentioned by Ptolemy, who places it in the Sinus Adulitanus; and about in the same position Strabo mentions a town as distinct from Saba. The sites of these, two towns, if they are really different, are sought by geographers at Nowarat or Port Mornington, in the page 43 south part of the coast of Nubia and Massawah (or Assab), on Foul Bay, on the north-east coast of Abyssinia."

A more probable solution appeared to be to derive the name from the great ancestors of the people, Sheba and Seba; but the dictum of Canon Rawlinson is so distinct and positive as to the solely ethnical character of these names in Genesis x., that I dare not base any inference on my own opinion, though, as I humbly stated, it differs from his in believing that the names given by the sacred genealogist are not ethnical only, but personal also.

That the Arabians, both Joktanite and Cushite, did name their tribes and places after their ancestors is abundantly clear as, in

^* Karduniyas is another name for Babylonia.

page 44 fact, it may be said broadly, did all the nations of antiquity. Arabian tradition states that the twelve sons of Ishmael were the eponyms of twelve powerful tribes—entirely confirmatory of the biblical account of Ishmael's family, which, without this explanation, appears obscure. Gen. xxv. 16: "These are the sons of Ishmael (previously named), and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations." Common native tradition deduces the name of Arabia itself from Yarab, a son of Kahtah, the biblical Joktan, the ancestor of the race.

The natives themselves, however, present a solution of the question as to the origin of the name Saba. In the Arabian traditions, the common progenitor of the tribes of Yemen was Kahtan, who is identified with the Joktan of Genesis. His great-grandson is said to have been Abd-Shams-Saba, and he is the eponymus of the Sabeans, the name by which these tribes were known to the northern Semites. ("Kings of Sheba and Seba," Ps. lxxii., probably of Solomonic age.—"Alphabet:" Taylor.)

The derivation of the name from this ancestor is perfectly satisfactory to my mind, knowing as I do, from long personal observation of the habits of the Maori in this respect, how strong is the tendency to preserve the memory and to perpetuate the names of the forefathers of the people, and how tribes are almost invariably named after them. But others who have had little or no practical experience in judging genealogies and investigating descents may be sceptical, and not content with the above explanation. To them I offer another, but I confess, to my mind, a less satisfactory one, if it stood alone on its own merits; but perhaps both explanations may exist together.

It is universally known that the ancient Chaldæans were more celebrated than any other people for their knowledge of astronomy;^* and they combined with this science what is called

^* The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and accurate. Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon, sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and extending back as far as 2234 B.C. Humboldt says, "The Chaldeans knew the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar theory." The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could foretell their reappearance. "A lens of considerable power was found in the ruins of Babylon: it was an inch and a half in diameter, and nine-tenths of an inch thick." (Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon.") Nero used optica glasses when he watched the fights of the gladiators. They are supposed to have come from Egypt and the East. "There are actual astronomical calculations in existence, with calendars formed upon them, which eminent astronomers of England and France admit to be genuine and true, and which carry back the antiquity of the science of astronomy, together with the constellations, to within a few years of the Deluge, even on the longer chronology of the Septuagint." ("The Miracle in Stone.") Josephus attributes the invention of the constellations to the family of the antediluvian Seth, the son of Adam; while Origen affirms that it was asserted in the Book of Enoch, that in the time of that patriarch the constellations were already divided and named. Bailly and others assert that astronomy "must have been established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of Virgo, and that the solar and lunar zodiacs were of similar antiquity, which would be about four thousand years before the Christian era." ("Atlantis:" Donnelly.)

The great Chaldæn poem, the "story of Izdhubar," is in 12 books, and their arrangement was based on the calendar, each of the twelve months being represented by a story of the hero—Izdhubar corresponding with the Zodiac sign. Thus for the second month, called the month of the Propitius Bull (Taurus), there was the legend of Heabani, the satyr-like companion of the hero: for the third month—of the Twins, Gemini—the episode of the two twin sisters Samkhat (Pleasure) and Kharimat (Lust), the companions of Ishtar; while the famous Deluge legend is woven into the poem to correspond with the eleventh month, "The curse of rain," and the sign Aquarius.

page 45 astrology. Their religion consisted in adoration of the heavenly bodies, not indeed originally as deities themselves, but from the view that God was too great and sublime to occupy himself directly with the affairs of the world; that he had handed over the ruling of it to the heavenly bodies; that man is too small a thing to address himself immediately to God, but may more fitly direct prayers and offer sacrifices to these intermediate agents. All their gods seem to have represented heavenly bodies, and they were worshipped with great splendour. Temples, no doubt, existed in every town,^* and it appears highly probable that these places of public meeting bore the name of Saba. A passage in Hearn's "Aryan Household" strengthens this probability. "The word Sabha is composed of the preposition sa, which is the Latin cum, the Greek and of the root bha. It means an assembly, and secondarily a place of worship. Sometimes Sabha is used in the

^* According to the Periplus, sixty temples existed within the walls of Sabata.

page 46 sense of a tribunal." Although the word is a Sanscrit word it was adopted into the Chaldæan language doubtless when all the races were living together in Shinar along with a vast number of other Sanscrit words.^* We can, then, well understand that when they abandoned their ancient homes and formed new settlements the first work which this very religious^† people would undertake would be the building of a Saba, whose name would gradually be transferred to the town that grew around it. The name was a holy name, like the Olympus of the Pelasgians. The course of migration of that illustrious race may be traced by the numerous names of Olympus which mark their progress. The signification is much the same as that of Saba, viz., celestial mansion, or "the house where God's glory dwelleth," to use Solomon's phrase at the dedication of his temple. Thus, immediately south of the Caucanian settlement on the limits of Bithynia, and what was afterwards called Galatia, there was an Olympus. Travelling westward we find an Olympus in the northern confines of Phrygia; a third meets us on the island of Lesbos: a fourth in Cilicia, according to Apollodorus; a fifth in Lycia, mentioned by Pliny; a sixth in Cyprus; a seventh in Arcadia; an eighth in Elis; and a ninth, and best known of all, an Olympus near that part of Thessaly where the name of Pelasgian disappeared and Hellene appeared in its place.

And so perhaps it was with these Chaldæans. They took their sacred name with them, and dotted their new territories with it as with their footprints. Whatever may have been the origin of the name Saba it furnished the future ethnic designation of the

^* One of the most curious instances of common property in words is the name of the marine animal, the sea-hedgehog or urchin. The Maori name is hekina; the Latin, echinus; Greek, English, urchin, the k being softened into ch. Stabo tells us that near some islands in front of the Euphrates sea-urchins were found of a vast size, "some being larger than Macedonian hats, others of the capacity of two cotyli." Possibly when their shells were taken to Greece and Rome for ornaments, the vernacular or Akkadian name accompanied them, as gutta-percha was adopted into the English language when the substance was brought to England.

^† See St. Paul's address to the Athenians on Mars Hill. Acts xvii. 22).

page 47 nation to the exterior world. The author of Job knew these people as Sabæans. It was the queen of the Sabæans who visited Solomon, and it was the Sabæan wealth that in later times excited the cupidity of Rome, and which was sung by Horace—

Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides
Gazis, et acrem militiam paras
Non ante devictis Sabææ regibus.

I have been thus minute in our inquiry into the history of this word Saba because its position and importance is of the greatest consequence to our subsequent investigations. I hope still further to trace its progress through the islands of the Indian Ocean, where it is living to this day, and into all the great groups of the Pacific, where, under the different forms which it has assumed under dialectic variations, it constitutes an interesting subject of speculation to writers, who wonder why it is so frequent.