n
districts three or four centuries ago; _Jews in many Lands_,
p. 178. Cf. _Wo waeren die zehn Staemme Israels zu suchen?_
Dr. M. Lewin, Frankfort, 1901.]

[Footnote 167: It should be remembered that _Cush_ in
ancient Jewish literature does not always signify Ethiopia,
but also denotes parts of Arabia, especially those nearest
to Abyssinia. The name _Cush_ is also applied to countries
east of the Tigris, see p. 63.]

[Footnote 168: Rayy is the ancient city of Rages, spoken of
in the Book of Tobit i. 14. The ruins are in the
neighbourhood of Teheran.]

[Footnote 169: The incidents here related are fully gone
into by Dr. Neubauer in the third of his valuable articles
"Where are the ten tribes?" (_J. Q.R._, vol. I, p. 185).
There can be little doubt that the Kofar-al-Turak, a people
belonging to the Tartar stock, are identical with the
so-called subjects of Prester John, of whom so much was
heard in the Middle Ages. They defeated Sinjar in the year
1141; this was, however, more than fifteen years prior to
Benjamin's visit. To judge from the above passage, where the
allies of the Jews are described as "infidels, the sons of
Ghuz of the Kofar-al-Turak," Benjamin seems to confound the
Ghuzes with the Tartar hordes. Now the Ghuzes belonged to
the Seldjuk clans who had become Mohammedans more than 100
years before, and, as such, Benjamin would never have styled
them infidels. These Ghuzes waged war with Sinjar in 1153,
when he was signally defeated, and eventually made prisoner.
It is to this battle that Benjamin must have made reference,
when he writes that it took place fifteen years ago. See Dr.
A. Mueller's _Islam,_ also Dr. G. Oppert's _Presbyter
Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, 1864._]

[Footnote 170: It will be noted that Benjamin uses here the
terms [Hebrew: ] evidently implying that he himself did not go
to sea.

In the Middle Ages the island of Kish or Kis was an
important station on the trade route from India to Europe.
Le Strange writes, p. 257, that in the course of the twelfth
century it became the trade centre of the Persian Gulf. A
great walled city was built in the island, where water-tanks
had been constructed, and on the neighbouring sea-banks was
the famous pearl-fishery. Ships from India and Arabi