a
crowded the port. Kish was afterwards supplanted by Ormuz
and Bandar-Abbas; England held possession of the island from
1820 to 1879, and it has recently been visited officially by
Lord Curzon. For a description of the island see _The
Times,_ Jan. 18, 1904.]

[Footnote 171: Katifa or El-Katif lies on the Persian Gulf,
on the East coast of Arabia, near Bahrein. Bochart is of
opinion that this part of Arabia is the land of Havilah,
where, according to Gen. ii. 11 and 12, there is gold,
bdellium, and the onyx stone. Jewish authorities are divided
in opinion as to whether [Hebrew] is a jewel, or the
fragrant gum exuded by a species of balsam-tree. Benjamin
follows Saadia Gaon, who in his Arabic translation of the
Bible renders it [Hebrew], the very word used by our author
here for pearls. Masudi is one of the earliest Arabic
writers who gives us a description of the pearl-fisheries in
the Persian Gulf, and it very much accords with Benjamin's
account. See Sprenger's translation of Masudi's _Meadows of
Gold_, p. 344. At the present time more than 5,000 boats are
engaged in this industry along this coast, and it yields an
annual income of L1,000,000. See P.M. Sykes, _Ten Thousand
Miles in Persia_, 1902.]

[Footnote 172: Khulam, now called Quilon, was a much
frequented seaport in the early Middle Ages where Chinese
shippers met the Arab traders. It afterwards declined in
importance, being supplanted by Calicut, Goa, and eventually
by Bombay. It was situated at the southern end of the coast
of Malabar. Renaudot in a translation of _The Travels of Two
Mohammedan Traders_, who wrote as far back as 851 and 915
respectively, has given us some account of this place; Ibn
Batuta and Marco Polo give us interesting details. Ritter,
in the fifth volume of his Geography, dilates on the
cultivation of the pepper-plant, which is of indigenous
growth. In Benjamin's time it was thought that white pepper
was a distinct species, but Ritter explains that it was
prepared from the black pepper, which, after lying from
eight to ten days in running water, would submit of
being stripped of its black outer covering. Ritter devotes a
chapter to the fire-worship of the Guebers, who, as Parsees,
form an important element at the present day in the