o
that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the
merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making
great profits thereby. This city has under it many other towns and
villages.[NOTE 1]

Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The
trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several
places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it
flows from the tree without any notch; this is by reason of the great heat
of the sun there.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.--_Dufar_. The name [Arabic] is variously pronounced Dhafar,
DHOFAR, Zhafar, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile plain
district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Shehr, though
according to Haines there is now no _town_ of the name. Ibn Batuta speaks
of the city as situated at the extremity of Yemen ("the province of
Aden"), and mentions its horse-trade, its unequalled dirt, stench, and
flies, and consequent diseases. (See II. 196 seqq.) What he says of the
desert character of the tract round the town is not in accordance with
modern descriptions of the plain of Dhafar, nor seemingly with his own
statements of the splendid bananas grown there, as well as other Indian
products, betel, and coco-nut. His account of the Sultan of Zhafar in his
time corroborates Polo's, for he says that prince was the son of a cousin
of the King of Yemen, who had _been chief of Zhafar under the suzerainete
of that King and tributary to him_. The only ruins mentioned by Haines are
extensive ones near Haffer, towards the _western_ part of the plain; and
this Fresnel considers to be the site of the former city. A lake which
exists here, on the landward side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a
gulf, and formed the port, "the very good haven," of which our author
speaks.

A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbat, which is at the
eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of Dhafar in the
Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that the city itself was in
the eastern part of the plain. The matter evidently needs further
examination.

This Dhafar, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to be the _Sephar_
of Genesis (x. 30). But it does not seem to be the _Sapphara metropolis_
of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of the same name: "Dhafar was
the name of _two_ cities of Yemen, one of which was near Sana'a ... it was
th