422 plint's natural history. [Book V. 



CIIAP. 12. (11.) THE COASTS OF ARABIA, SITUATE 03S" THE 



EGYPTIAN SEA. 



Beyond the Pelusiac Mouth is Arabia^ which extends to 

 the Red Sea, and joins the Arabia known by the surname of 

 Happy ^, so famous for its perfumes and its wealth. This' 

 is called Arabia of the Catabanes"*, the Esbonitse', and the 

 Scenitae^ ; it is remarkable for its sterility, except in the parts 

 where it joins up to Syria, and it has nothing remarkable 

 in it except Mount Casius*^. The Arabian nations of the 

 Canchlaei^ join these on the east, and, on the south the 

 Cedrei^, both of which peoples are adjoining to the Naba- 

 taei^". The two gidfs of the Eed Sea, where it borders upon 



^ Arabia Petraea ; that part of Arabia which immediately joins up to 

 EgyP*- ^ Called Arabia Felix to the present day. 



3 The part of Arabia which joins up to Egypt, Arabia Petrsea namely. 



•* Strabo places this people as far south as the mouth of the Red Sea, 

 i.e. on the east of the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeb. Forster (in his ' Arabia,' 

 vol. ii.) takes tliis name to be merely an mversion of Beni Kahtan, the 

 great tribe which mainly peoples, at the present day, central and south- 

 ern Arabia. 



^ Probably the people of Esebon, the Heshbon of Scripture, spoken of 

 by Jerome as being the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites. 



^ The " tent-people," from the Greek (tkijvh}, " a tent." This seems to 

 have been a name conmion to the nomadic tribes of Arabia. Ammianus 

 MarceUinus speaks of them as being the same as the Saraceni or Saracens. 



7 The modern El Katieh or El Kas ; which is the summit of a lofty 

 range of sandstone hills on the borders of Egypt and Arabia Petrsea, im- 

 mediately south of the Sirbonian Lake and the Mediterranean Sea. On its 

 western side was the tomb of Pompey the Great. 



^ The same as the Amalekites of Scripture, according to Hardouin. 

 Bochart thinks that they are the same as the Chavilsei, who are men- 

 tioned as dwelling in the vicinity of Babylon. 



^ The position which Phny assigns to tins nation would correspond 

 with the northern part of the modern district of the Hedjaz, Forster 

 identifies them with the Cauraitse, or Cadraitse of Arrian, and the Darrre 

 of Ptolemy, tracing their origin to the Cedar or Kedar, the son of Ishmael, 

 mentioned in Genesis xxv. 13, and represented by the modern Harb nation 

 and the modern town of Kedeyre. See Psalm cxx. 5 : "Woe is me, that 

 I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" 



^^ An Arabian people, said to have descended from the eldest son of 

 Ishmael, who had theu' original abodes in the north-western part of the 

 Arabian pcninsida, east and south-east of the Moabites and Edomites. 

 Extending their territory, we find the Nabatsei of Greek and Roman 

 lustory occupying nearly the whole of Arabia Petraea, along the north- 

 east coast of the Red Sea, on both sides of theiElanitic Gulf, and on the 



