* 

 DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 65 



Kave been ascribed to atmospheric poison. The 

 simoom usuall}- lasts three days ; but if it exceed that 

 time it becomes insupportable. It blows from the 

 east and the north, and is of such excessive aridity 

 that water sprinkled on the gromid evaporates in a 

 few minutes. When the wind changes to the south, 

 every thing is in the opposite extreme, — the air is 

 damp, and substances when handled feel clammy 

 and wet to the touch. The predominating winds in 

 the Xejed are the gharbi, or south-west, which is dry, 

 and pernicious to cultivation, and occasionally blows 

 from the same point seven months in succession ; 

 the hesiah, or west wind, is of a burning heat, and 

 prevails in June, July, and August. The shamal, or 

 north, is cool and refreshing ; the jenoub and sharki 

 (south and east), " the fathers of the rains,"" are the 

 Avelcome harbingers of clouds, which soon dissolve 

 in grateful showers. 



A description of Arabia necessarily includes the 

 two gulfs that form its eastern and western bounda- 

 ries. Both of these seas figure in the early annals 

 of oriental commerce ; they are filled with sunken 

 rocks, sandbanks, and small islands, which throw 

 impediments in the way of free and safe navigation. 

 Pliny has remarked, that nowhere are the depositions 

 from rivers more perceptible than at the mouth of 

 the Euphrates. He mentions the famous reservoir, 

 which he calls Baramalchum (Bahr el Malec, i. e. 

 the Royal Lake), formed by Nebuchadnezzar, who 

 raised a mound, or wall, to confine the waters at the 

 mouth of the Tigris. The Persian Gulf is included 

 by Nearchus, Arrian, Strabo, and other Greek 

 writers, under the name of the Erythrasan Sea, — so 

 denominated, as they allege, from a certain king, 

 Erythrus, who reigned and was buried in one of the 

 islands at its estuary. Ormuz stands associated 

 with the ancient wealth of India ; and Tyrus and 

 Aradus are supposed to be the cradle of the Tyrians 

 and Phenicians. The Bahrein group, on the Ara- 



F 2 



