ection to the Jews.

The volcanic highlands (Harrah) of Kheibar were always
inaccessible, owing to their being surrounded by waterless
deserts and fanatic Bedouin tribes.

R. Abraham Farissol, who flourished at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, writes that there was a large number of
Jews in the district, who lived in tents and in wooden
houses or huts. His contemporary, David Reubeni, who crossed
from Arabia to Abyssinia and came to Europe in 1524,
pretended to be brother of Joseph, king of the tribes of
Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh in the desert of Chabor
(Kheibar). Benjamin takes care to qualify his statement as
to the origin of the Jews of Kheibar by adding [Hebrew:]
"_people say_ they belong to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the
half-tribe of Manasseh, whom Salmanesser, King of Assyria,
led hither into captivity."

I would here mention an interesting work of Dr. R. Dozy,
Professor of History and Oriental Languages at Leyden, _Die
Israeliten in Mecca_, 1864. By a series of ingenious
inferences from Bible texts (1 Sam. xxx, 1 Chron. iv. 24-43,
&c.) he essays to establish that the tribe of Simeon, after
David had dispersed the Amalekites who had already been
weakened by Saul, entered Arabia and settled all along in
the land of the Minaeans and at Mecca, where they
established the worship at the Kaaba and introduced
practices which have not been altogether abandoned up to the
present day. Dr. Dozy further contends that after Hezekiah's
reign numerous Jewish exiles came to Arabia.

Hommel, in two articles in Ersch and Gruber's
_Encyclopaedia_, under "Bedouins" and "Anzah," gives full
particulars respecting the Anizeh, otherwise Anaessi,
tribe--that they were in the habit of joining the Wahabees
and other Bedouin tribes in attacking caravans and levying
blackmail. The Turkish Pasha at Damascus had to pay annually
passage-money to ensure the safety of the pilgrims to Mecca.
On one occasion two of the Bedouin sheiks were decoyed by
the Turks and killed; but the Anaessi, aided by other tribes
to the number of 80,000, took ample revenge by pillaging the
Mecca caravan on its return. They seized a quantity of
pearls, and the women were said to have attempted boiling
them with the rice. Seetzen (_Journey through Syri