43 DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 



The political divisions' of Arabia are differently 

 Jrepresented by different Avriters. The knowledge 

 which the ancients had of the country was imper- 

 fect, and little reliance can be placed on their de- 

 scriptions. They scattered mountains, cities, and 

 rivers over its surface at random ; chiefly, it would 

 seem, to fill up a void in their maps, and to preserve 

 a kind of symmetry or analogy between this and 

 the other portions of the earth with which they 

 Were better acquainted. Even D'Anville's accus- 

 tomed accuracy is here at fault ; and travellers have 

 frequently borrowed from others what they had not 

 the means to verify by actual survey. Within the 

 last quarter of a century the torch of war has thrown 

 a new light on many parts of the desert which 

 might have still remained unexplored, had not these 

 regions become the theatre of hostilities with a 

 foreign enemy. The Turkish geographers divide 

 Arabia into twelve provinces, while others limit 

 them to two. The division most familiar to us is 

 that introduced by Ptolemy, viz. the Stony, the 

 Desert, and the Happy Arabia ; a distinction which 

 is applicable to the general features of the country 

 rather than descriptive of separate provinces. The 

 Greeks, it is well known, took great liberties with 

 countries of which they had little acquaintance ; 

 but here they ought not to be accused of imposing 

 arbitrary names, since they merely translated words 

 which have a similar import in the original, and had 

 been used by the natives themselves. 



Petr^a, or the Stony Arabia, occupied the moun- 

 tainous tract between Palestine and the Red Sea. 

 ItAvas the country allotted to Esau or Edom, from 

 whom it took the name of Idumea. It was the land 

 of the Amalekites, Midianites, Hittites, Hivites, 

 Kedarenes, Hagarenes, Nabathfeans, and other 

 tribes descended from Abraham, so often mentioned 

 in the wars of the .lews, under Moses, Joshua, and 

 David. To this wild but interesting region belongs 



