DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. "^^ 



a reverence which no other portion of the earth, 

 Judaea excepted, can claim. It was the theatre of 

 many awful and extraordinary events recorded in 

 Jewish history. The sacred eminence of Sinai, on 

 whose cloudy summit the Deity made his pavilion , 

 of darkness when he first issued a system of written 

 laws to the human race — Horeb, with its burning 

 bush, and its caves that gave shelter to Elijah when 

 he fled from the persecution of Jezebel — the pastoral 

 solitudes where the Jewish deliverer, then an exile 

 from Egypt, kept the flocks of Jethro, the priest of 

 Midian — Shur and Parah, with the bitter wells of 

 Marah, and the smitten rock that yielded water — 

 the land of Uz, the scene of the wealth and the 

 woes of Job, of the trial of his patience and the 

 triumph of his piety — are all comprehended within 

 the geography of Petraea. 



Ara-bia Deserta extended north and east as far 

 as the Euphrates. It was separated from Petraea 

 by the ridge of Mount Seir, and understood to com- 

 prehend the great central wilderness ; but its liriiits 

 were vague and obscure. 



Arabia Felix embraced the celebrated Region 

 of Incense on the coast of the Indian Ocean. The 

 ancients have dwelt with all the extravagance of 

 romance on the costliness of its productions, and 

 the wealth and number of its inhabitants. Marcian 

 informs us, that in his time it contained fifty-four 

 provinces, one hundred and sixty-four towns and 

 villages, fifteen ridges of hills, four considerable 

 rivers, five bays, two seacoasts, with thirty-five ad- 

 jacent islands.* Strabo states that it was divided 

 into five kingdoms, and that its chief cities abounded 

 in temples and palaces. f The principal nations men- 



* Arrian, Marcian, Agatharcides, Dionysius, Periegetes, &c. 

 may be consnlted in Hudson's Geograph. Minor. See also Dr 

 Vincent's learned Disquisitions on tlie Periplus of the Eiy 

 thraean Sea. 



t Strabo, Geog. lib.xvi. Pliny (Nat. Hist. lib. vi.) says that 



