266° The American Naturalist. [March, 
the probable ulterior objects of Stanley’s expedition—remarks that 
seem not unlikely to be founded on fact. 
Captain V. Nicolasis is contributing *to the Revue Géographique a 
series of articles upon West and South Madagascar. 
Asia.—The Bahrein Islands.—M. J. Theodore Bent (Proc. 
Roy. Geog. Soc.) gives a description of the Bahrein Islands in the 
Persian Gulf, upon the Arabian coast. “The pearl fisheries of these 
islands have been famous from the days of Nearchus until now, and 
who has not heard of the subaqueous springs of fresh water upon their 
coast ? 
Mr. Bent was, however, impelled to investigate the group from 
archeological reasons, his object being to search some of the numerous 
mounds which are to be found in them, notably in Bahrein itself. This 
island is twenty-seven miles long and ten wide, Moharek is five miles 
in length, and has a width of half a mile, while the rest are mere 
rocks. Among these are Sayeh, Khasafeh, Manaweh and Arad, the 
latter a Phoenician name. Bahrein has a population of about 8,000, 
and the group is governed by an hereditary Sheikh, who is now under 
the protection of Britain. Bahrein has many subterranean springs, 
related in their nature to those which in some places rise under the sur- 
face of the gulf. The first European nation to put in an appearance 
at this group was the Portuguese, who came under Albuquerque in 
1506, and whose power lasted until 1622, when Shah Abbas, assisted 
by an English fleet, took Hormuz and Bahrein. ‘The islands fell into 
the power of the Arabs in 1711. 
The extensive group of mounds, some of which were explored by 
Mr. Bent, is situated near the village of Ali, and examples reach a 
height of forty feet. After digging through hard earth for fifteen feet, 
a layer of loose stones two feet thick was met with, then one of de- 
cayed palm branches. Under these a two-story tomb, the lower cham- 
ber higher than the upper, was discovered, and its structure was so simi- 
lar to that of Phoenician tombs in general as to lend support to the 
idea that these islands were either the original home of that people, or 
at least one of their earliest settlements. The upper chamber con- 
- tained fragments of i ivory, bits of a statue of a bull, circular boxes, 
etc., in a word the treasures of. the deceased, whose body was buried 
in the lower chamber where traces of bones were found, together with 
the decayed remnants of drapery and remains of the wooden pins 
used to fasten it to the walls. 

