Chap. 32.] 
ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 
87 
famous for being the burial-place of king Erytbras it is dis- 
tant from the mainland one hundred and twenty miles, being 
one hundred and twelve in circumference. 'No less famous is 
another island, called Dioscoridu,^^ and lying in the Azanian 
Sea it is distant two hundred and eighty miles from tho 
extreme point of the Promontory of Syagrus.^^ 
The remaining places and nations on the mainland, lying 
still to the south, are the Ausaritse, to whose country it is seven 
days' journey among the mountains, the nations of the Laren- 
dani and the Catabani, and the Gebanitse, who oexiupy a great 
number of towns, the largest of which are Nagia, and Thomna 
wdth sixty-five temples, a number which fully bespeaks its size. 
"We then come to a promontory, from which to the mainland 
of the Troglodytse it is fifty miles, and then the Thoani, the 
Actsei, the Chatramotitae, the Tonabei, the Antidalei, the Lex- 
ianae, the Agreei, the Cerbani, and the Sabsei,*^ the best known 
of all the tribes of Arabia, on account of their frankincense ; 
these nations extend from sea to sea.'*^ The towns which be- 
long to them on the Eed Sea are Marane, Marma, Corolla, and 
Sabatha ; and in the interior, IN'ascus, Cardava, Carnus, and 
Thomala, from which they bring down their spices for expor- 
tation. One portion of this nation is the Atramitae,^^ whose 
3^ There seem to have been three mythical personages of this name ; 
hut it appears impossible to distinguish the one from the other. 
27 Or "Dioscoridis Insula,'* an island of the Indian Ocean, of con- 
siderable importance as an emporium or mart, in ancient times. It lay 
between the Syagrus Promontorium, in Arabia, and Aromata Promon- 
torium, now Cape Guardafui, on the opposite coast of Africa, somewhat 
nearer to the former, according to Arrian, which cannot he the case if it is 
rightly identified with Socotorra, 200 miles distant from the Arabian 
coast, and 110 from the north-east promontory of Africa. 
3« So called from Azania, or Barbaria, now Ajan, south of Somauli, on 
the mainland of Africa. 
39 Now Cape Fartash, in Arabia. 
*o Their country is supposed to have been the Sheba of Scripture, the 
queen of which visited king Solomon. It was situate in the south-western 
corner of Arabia Felix, the north and centre of the province of Yemen, 
though the geographers before Ptolemy seem to give it a still wider 
extent, quite to the south of Yemen. The SabsBi most probably spread 
originally on both sides of the southern part of the Red Sea, the shores of 
Arabia and Africa. Their capital was Saba, in which, according to their 
usage, their king was confined a close prisoner. 
*i The Persian Gulf to the Eed Sea. 
The modern district of Hadramaut derives its name from this people, 
