OF THE ANCIENT ARABS. 161 



olibanum by the natives, the quality of which is very 

 inferior, is the only species cultivated by them, and 

 is produced in the province of Sahar, and the moun- 

 tains of Dhafar and Merbat. They procure several 

 kinds from Abyssinia, Sumatra, Java, and Siam, 

 which they export in great quantities to Turkey. 



According to Niebuhr's accoimt, neither gold nor 

 silver mines are worked or even kno\vn in Arabia ; 

 though a small quantity of the latter metal is ex- 

 tracted from the lead obtained in the province of 

 Oman. The onyx, a kind of emerald employed in 

 adorning the walls of houses ; amber, blue alabas- 

 ter, selenite, and various spars, are found in Ye- 

 men ; though the Danish traveller mentions, that 

 most of the precious stones ascribed to that country 

 are brought from India. Still, though shorn of its 

 honours, it is difficult to efface from the mind the 

 glowing descriptions of antiquity. These must have 

 rested on a solid basis of truth, clouded as they may 

 have been with fable and hyperbole. The positive 

 and unanimous testimony of so many writers can- 

 not allow us to doubt their accounts, though we may 

 suspect exaggeration. That the mountains of Ye- 

 men once yielded gold, sometimes found in the body 

 of the rocks, or in loose globules on the surface, or 

 in the sands of the rivers, is an historical fact to 

 which there appears no reason whatever for re- 

 fusing our assent. The evidence that Solomon- 

 ■obtained gold from Arabia is express. Without at- 

 taching much importance to the thuriferous enco-' 

 miums of Virgil and Horace, we may presume that 

 the legions of Greece and Rome would not have 

 braved so many dangers, nor courted an alliance 

 with the Sabaeans, had the report of their wealth 

 been an idle fiction.* 



*" India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabasi." — Virg. Georg. i. 

 L 57. Horace indeed thinks his friend Maecenas should prefer a 

 lock of Licinia's hair to the " plenas Arabum domos." — Carmin. 

 lib. ii. ode 12. Philostorgius, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. c. 4. 



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