DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 35 



CHAPTER II. 



DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 



Name— Boundaries — General Features— Ancient Geographical 

 Divisions — Arabia Petr^a — Deserta — Felix — Modem Divi- 

 sions — Hejaz— Tehama — Yemen— Hadramaut— Oman — La- 

 sha or El-Hassa—Hejed— Peninsula of Sinai— Ancient Bed 

 of the Jordan — Mounts Sinai and Horeb — View from their 

 Top — Various Opinions as to their Identity — CUmate of Ara- 

 bia — Heat — Rains— Rivers — Winds — The Simoom — Arabian 

 Seas— Persian Gulf— Red Sea— Coral Banks— Passage of 

 the Israelites— Dangerous Navigation— Steam Conmiunica- 

 tion with India. ' 



Arabia is generally allowed to have derived its 

 name from a Hebrew word, denoting- a wilderness 

 or land of deserts and plains. Various other deriva- 

 tions have been assigned ; and learned etymologists 

 are divided in opinion, whether the term be expres- 

 sive of a mixed, a mercantile, or a western people. 

 The Arabs themselves trace it to one of their ances- 

 tors, whom they call Yarab, a son of Joktan, who is 

 said to have been one of the earliest settlers in that 

 coimtry ; but as Yarab does not occur among the 

 thirteen sons of that patriarch mentioned in Scrip- 

 ture (Gen. X. 26-29), this inference may be con- 

 sidered as purely traditional. The name of Arabah 

 is repeatedly applied to the western wilderness by 

 Moses, who describes it with a minuteness not to be 

 mistaken, as situated " over-against the Red Sea, 

 between Paran and Tophel: and by the way of 

 Elath and Ezion-gaber."* A small tract in the 



* The word translated plain (Deut. i. 1, and ii. 8) is in the 

 original Arabah, by the Red Sea, &c. " Arabia non ab Arabo, 



