esseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p.
1122-1132, from Artemidorus,) Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny,
(Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi. 32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium,
in Hudson, tom. iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the
subject with the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
(Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the Sherif
al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the version or
abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which the Maronites
have published under the absurd title of Geographia Nubiensis, (Paris,
1619;) but the Latin and French translators, Greaves (in Hudson, tom.
iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,)
have opened to us the Arabia of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct
account of the peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3.
The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
(Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p. 416-510)
has compiled with judgment, and D'Anville's Maps (Orbis Veteribus
Notus, and 1re Partie de l'Asie) should lie before the reader, with his
Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. * Note: Of modern travellers
may be mentioned the adventurer who called himself Ali Bey; but above
all, the intelligent, the enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.--M.]
[Footnote 3: Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et
le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the paradise or garden of
a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks first passed the Euphrates,
(Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit. Wells.)]
[Footnote 4: Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,
1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of the
Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of the Indian
Ocean.
2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks or
negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]
[Footnote 5: In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca,
there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route of the Hadjees,
in Shaw's Travels, p. 477.]
[Footnote 6: The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense, of
Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet (Paradise Lost,
l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odo
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