444 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



The Straits by which we enter the Arabian Gulf are by 

 the Portuguefe called Babelmandeb, which is nonfenfe. 

 The name by which it goes among the natives is Babel- 

 mandeb, the Gate or Port of Affliction. And near it Ptolemy * 

 places a town he calls, in the Greek, Mandaeth, which ap- 

 pears to me to be only a corruption of Mandeb. The Pro- 

 montory that makes the fouth fide of the Straits, and the city 

 thereupon, is Dira, which means the Hades, or Hell, by Ptole- 

 my f called Avpn. This, too, is a tranflation of the ancient 

 name,becaufe Awpj (orDirce) has no lignification in the Greek. 

 A duller of iflands you meet in the canal, after palling Mo- 

 cha, is called Jibbel Zekir, or, the Iflands of Prayer for the 

 remembrance of the dead. And flill, in the fame courfe up 

 the Gulf, others are called Sebaat Gzier, Praife or Glory be 

 to God, as we may fuppofe, for the return from this danger* 

 ous navigation. 



All the coafl to the eaftward, to where Gardefan flretches 

 out into the ocean, is the territory of Saba, which imme- 

 morially has been the mart of frankincenfe, myrrh, and 

 balfam. Behind Saba, upon the Indian Ocean, is the Regio 

 Chinamonifera, where a confiderable quantity of that wild tin*- 

 namon grows, which the Italian druggifes call canella. 



Inland near to Azab, as I have before obferved, are large 

 ruins, fome of them of fmall Hones and lime adhering ftrong- 

 ly together. There is efpecially an aqueduct, which brought 

 formerly a large quantity of water from a fountain in the 

 mountains, which mull have greatly contributed to the 



beauty, 



* Pto'. Geog. lib. 4. cap. 7. f id. ibid. 



