A. D. 7^. 



165 



Safhes ; 



Ointment of a middling quality ; 



Corn and wine in fmall quantities, 

 fome of both being produced in 

 the country ; 



Money fufficient to fettle the ba- 

 lances. 



The exports, confifling of native 



Myrh of the choicefl quality ; 

 Stade, or tears of myrh, of the 

 mofl excellent quality % ■\ 



The merchants alfo prefented to 



the king 



Horfes ; * 



Mules for burthen ; 



Veffels of gold and filver plate and 



of brafs ; 

 Magnificent drefies. 



productions, were 



Lygdus, a fine kind of alabafter, 

 of which boxes were made ; 



Alfo all the articles exported from 

 Aduli. 



At iio great dlftance from Muza refided Cokebus king of Mapharitis, 

 and, as already obferved, fovereign of the diflant country adjacent to 

 Rhapta on the African coafi: ; and fomewhat farther inland was the feat 

 of Charibael king of the Homerites and Sabseans, who alfo extended his 

 fway over a part of Azania on the eaft coaft of Africa. This prince 

 cultivated the friendfhip of the Roman emperors by fending frequent 

 embaffies and gifts to them. 



Fading Okelis, which was juft without the Straits, and only a water- 

 ing place and harbour for inward-bound veflels, our author proceeds 

 about 120 miles eaflward along the fliore to the port of Arabia Felix. 

 This city long flouriflied the greateft emporium on all the fhores of the 

 Erythrtean fea (or Indian ocean) wefiward from the River Indus. From 

 it Egypt and the other countries of Africa, the merchants of Phoenicia 

 and Carthage, and through them all the countries bordering upon the 

 Mediterranean, and even thofe on the Atlantic ocean, including per- 

 haps our own Britifli iflands, and, by the caravans, all the wefiern coun- 

 tries of Afia, were fupplied with Oriental produce and manufadures in 

 exchange for their own commodities. And in this happy ftate of ap- 

 parently-uninterrupted commercial profperity it continued till the 



* Horfes impoited from Egypt into Arabia, 

 and into that part of it which is mod celebrated 

 for the fuperiority of its horfes ! Is it certain that 

 Arabia has been famons for its breed of horfes 

 ever fince the days of Ifhmael, as alleged by hifto- 

 rians quoted by Leo Africanus ? Or have horfes, 

 as well as coffee, (another article mentioned by no 

 antient Greek or Roman author, and believed to 

 be a native of Abyffinia) been introduced into 

 Arabia in the darknefs of the middle ages? — Horfes 

 are not mentioned in either of the two enumera- 

 tions of Job's property, though camels and other 

 animals are. — Solomon imported horfes from Egypt 

 and from other countries, but Arabia is not parti- 

 cularized. — In Ezekiel's account of the commerce 



of Tyre, horfes are brought from Togormah, 

 (Cappadocia, the country which fupplied the Per- 

 Can kiiigs with horfes, a breed celebrated by many 

 antient authors) but only fheep and goats from 

 Arabia, which alfo furniihed the fame kinds of 

 animals, as we find by II Chron. c. 1 7, to Jehofo- 

 phat king of Judah. — The learned and indefa- 

 tigable Bochart has not a word of an Arabian 

 breed in all the palfagcs concerning horfes which 

 he has coUefted in his Hiero%nicon. — This fubjefl 

 will be touched upon again under the year 345. 



\ 'Zray.X'n (riiv^txix, or perhaps rather Xtkatk 

 aeiigiKif«?a, myrh of the bed quality produced in 

 the country of the Minxi. See Bochart, Cso". 

 facr. snl, up. 



