84 pliny's natural HISTOET. [Book VI. 



on the left side of the river, and the Nomadic tribes of the 

 ScenitaB on the right. Some writers also make mention 

 of two other cities situate at long intervals, as you sail along 

 the Tigris, Barbatia, and then Thumata, distant from Petra, 

 they say, ten days' sail ; our merchants report that these places 

 are subject to the king of Charax. The same writers also state, 

 that Apamea ^' is situate where the overflow of the Euphrates 

 unites with the Tigris ; and that when the Parthians meditate 

 an incursion, the inhabitants dam up the river by embankments, 

 and so inundate their country. 



We will now proceed to describe the coast after leaving 

 Charax, ^^ which was first explored by order of king Epiphanes. 

 We first come to the place where the mouth of the Euphrates 

 formerly existed, the river Salsus,^^ and the Promontory of 

 Chaldone,^^ from which spot, the sea along the coast, for an 

 extent of fifty miles, ^^ bears more the aspect of a series of 

 whirlpools than of ordinary sea ; the river Achenus, and then a 

 desert tract for a space of one hundred miles, until we come 

 to the island of Ichara ; the gulf of Capeus, on the shores of 

 which dwell the Gaulopes and the Chateni, and then the gulf 

 of Gerra.'° Here we find the city of Gerra, five miles in 

 circumference, with towers built of square blocks of salt. Fifty 

 miles from the coast, lying in the interior, is the region of At- 



15 In Sitacene, mentioned in the preceding Chapter. 



^6 Or rather, as Hardouin says, the shore opposite to Charax, and on 

 the western bank of the river. 



'^ Called Core Boobian, a narrow salt-water channel, laid down for the 

 first time in the East India Company's chart, and separating a large low 

 island, off the mouth of the old bed of the Euphrates, from the mainland. 



'3 The great headland on the coast of Arabia, at the entrance of the 

 bay of Doat-al-Kusma from the south, opposite to Pheleche Island. 



13 This is the line of coast extending from the great headland last men- 

 tioned to the river Khadema, the ancient Achenus. 



^" So called from the city of Arabia Fehx, built on its shores. Strabo 

 says of this city. " The city of Gerra lic^ in a deep gulf, whore Chald?ean 

 exiles from Babylon inhabit a salt country, having houses built of salt, 

 Ihc walls of which, when they are wasted by the heat of the sun, are 

 repaired by copious applications of sea-water." D'Anville first identified 

 this place with the modern El Khatiff. Niebuhr finds its site on the 

 modern Koneit of the Arabs, called " Gran" by tlie Persians ; but Foster 

 is of opinion that he discovered its ruins in the East India Company's 

 Chart, situate where all the ancient authorities had placed it, at the end 

 of the deep and narrow bay at the moutli of which are situated the islands 

 of Bahrein. The gulf mentioned by Pliny is identified by Foster with 

 that of Bahrein. 



