THE ARABS. 215 



adherents of Islamism toward anatomical investigations im- 

 peded their advance in zoology. They remained contented 

 with that which they were able to appropriate to themselves 

 from translations of the works of Aristotle and Galen ;* but, 



des Arabes, publ. par L. Am. Sedillot, t. i., 1834, p. 312-318 ; t. ii., 1835, 

 preface, with Humboldt's Examen Crit. de VHist. de la Geogr., t. in., 

 p. 64, and Asie Cenirale, t. iii., p. 593-596, in which the data occur 

 which I derived from the Mappa Mundi of Alliacus of 1410, in the 

 " Alphonsine Tables,''^ 1483, and in Madrignano's Itinerarium Portugal- 

 lensiurn, 1508. ^ It is singular that Edrisi appears to know nothing of 

 Khobbet Arin (Cancadora, more properly Kankder). Sedillot the 

 younger (in the Mimoire sur les Systemes Giograpkiques des Grecs et des 

 Arabes, 1842, p. 20-25) places the meridian of Arin in the group of the 

 Azores, while the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Reinaud {Mimoire 

 sur VInde anterieurement au Xle siecle de Vere Chritienne d^apres les 

 €crivains Arabes et Persans, p. 20-24), assumes that " the word Arin 

 has originated by confusion from Azyn, Ozein, and Odjein, an old seat of 

 cultivation (according to Burnouf, Udjijayani in Malwa), the ^O^rjvij of 

 Ptolemy. This Ozene was supposed to be in the meridian of Lanka, 

 and in later times Arin was conjectured to be an island on the coast of 

 Zanguebar. perhaps the Eoavvov of Ptolemy." Compare, also, Am. 

 Sedillot, M6m. sur les Instr. Astron. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75. 



* The Calif Al-Mamun caused maily valuable Greek manuscripts to 

 be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, and to bo 

 translated direct from Greek into Arabic, in consequence of the earlier 

 Arabic versions having long been founded on Syrian translations ( Jour- 

 dain, Recherches Crit. sur V Age etsur VOHgine des Traductions Latines 

 d'Aristote, 1819, p. 85, 88, and 226). Much has thus been rescued by 

 the exertions of Al-Mamun, which, without the Arabs, would have 

 been wholly lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by Ar- 

 menian translations, as Neumann of Munich was the first to show. Un- 

 happily, a notice by the historian Guezi of Bagdad, which has been 

 preserved by the celebrated geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir 

 entitled De Viris inter Arabes illustribus, leads to the conjecture that 

 at Bagdad itself many Greek originals, which were believed to be use- 

 less, were burned ; but this passage may not, perhaps, refer to import- 

 ant manuscripts already translated. It is capable of several interpre 

 tations, as has been shown by Bernhardy {Grundriss der Griech. Litte- 

 ratur, th. i., s. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Gesckichte der Classiscken 

 Litteratur, bd. i., s. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle have 

 often been found serviceable in executing Latin versions of the original, 

 as, for instance, the eight books of Physics, and the History of Animals; 

 but the larger and better part of the Latin translations have been made 

 direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Reck. Crit. sur VAge des Traductions 

 d^Aristote, p. 230-236). An allusion to the same two-fold source may 

 be recognized in the memorable letter of the Emperor Frederic \\. of 

 Hohenstaufen, in which he recommends the translations of Aristotle 

 which he presents, in 1232, to his universities, and especially to that of 

 Bologna. This letter expresses noble sentiments, and shows that it 

 was not only the love of natural history which taught Frederic H. to 

 appreciate the philosophical value of the " Compilationes varias quae 

 ab Aristotele aliisque philosophis sub Graecis Arabicisque vocabulis an- 

 tiquitus edita) sunt." He writes as follows : •* We have from our earliest 



