38 DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 



teenth century, extending the northern boundary 

 somewhat higher than Burckhardt, places it at Beles^ 

 nearly in the latitude of Aleppo. The length of 

 this extensive region, from Anah to the Strait of 

 Bab el Mandeb, is reckoned about 1480 miles ; and 

 its middle breadth, from Suez to Bussora, above 

 900. On the south, it presents a base of 1200 miles 

 v^ashed by the Indian Ocean. 



In its general features Arabia may be described 

 as an elevated table-land, sloping gently towards the 

 Persian Gulf. The whole of the southern coast is 

 a wall of naked rocks, as dismal and barren as can 

 well be conceived. Here and there they imbosom 

 a low sandy beach, but they are entirely destitute 

 of soil or herbage, offering to the eye of the mariner 

 a striking picture of ruin and desolation. The 

 mountains, brown alid bare, rise in several ranges, 

 one behind another, to the height of 1000 or 1500 

 feet. Such is the impenetrable rampart, dark, 

 waste, and wild, with which nature has guarded the 

 fabled land of " Araby the Blest." On every other 

 side this peninsula is encircled with a belt of flat, 

 dry, sandy ground ; that on the north is composed 

 of the Hauran (Auranitis) or Syrian Desert ; that 

 on the east, of the level shores of the Persian 

 Gulf. 



The interior of the country is chiefly buriiing 

 deserts, lying under a sky almost perpetually with- 

 out clouds, and stretcliing into immense and bomid- 

 less plains, where the eye meets nothmg but the 

 uniform horizon of a wild and dreary' waste. Over 

 the face of this vast solitude the sand sweeps along 

 in dry billows, or is whirled into hills and columns, 

 having the appearance of waterspouts, and tower- 

 ing to a prodigious height. When the wmds leave 

 them at rest, they resemble the ocean ; and their 

 level expanse, at a small distance, is sometimes mis- 

 taken by the thirsty traveller for a collection of 

 waters. This deception recedes as he journeys on, 



