Arabia Felix

“ The Abyssinians were connected with the people of Arabia not only by their situation,—they were a people of the same family, and their kingdom perhaps originated from some of the plundering expeditions of the early tobbaas of Hamyar. [3] Their Arabian origin is proved by the identity of their manners, their physiognomy, and their language, and even in some measure by their own traditions. Abyssinia resembled Arabia Felix also in its productions, its aromatic woods of myrrh and frankincense. Pure gold was found in many parts in abundance. ”

“ The Bedouin [274] are exceedingly proud of them, and in the absence of much water in their country they naturally look upon them with almost superstitious awe and veneration. Perhaps in Scotland one might be more inclined to call them mountain tarns, for neither of them is more than a mile in length, and in parts they are very narrow; yet they are deep, and, as the people at Al Hafa proudly told us, you could float thereon any steamer you liked, which may or may not be true, but their existence in a country like Arabia is, after all, their chief cause for renown. This really is Arabia Felix. ”

“ The division of Arabia into provinces has always been rather according to physical geography than political boundaries. The earliest division of the peninsula, and in some respects the most correct, was that of the Greek and Roman writers into Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix. The latter epithet was perhaps only a mistaken translation of El-Yemen—the land on “the right hand,” that is south of Mecca, for the Orientals face east. ”

“ If we now turn to the discoveries that have recently been made in the southern part of Arabia, we find much in them worthy of attention. This country, called in the Scriptures Hazarmaveth, by the natives Hadramaut, and by the classical writers of antiquity, Arabia Felix, is celebrated as being the kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon, as well as for the gold, gems, frankincense and other precious productions, which it furnished in ancient times. It is represented by the Greek and Roman writers as a populous country, with many extensive cities, abounding in temples and palaces ”

“ IN the reigns of the princes Abreha and Atzbeha, the Abyssinian annals mention an expedition to have happened into the farthest part of Arabia Felix, which the Arabian authors, and indeed Mahomet himself in the Koran calls by the name of the War of the Elephant, and the cause of it was this. There was a temple nearly in the middle of the peninsula of Arabia, that had been held in the greatest veneration for about 1400 years. The Arabs say, that Adam, when shut out of paradise, pitched his tent on this spot ”

“ In Syria and Mesopotamia, where communications are good and European penetration an established fact, there should not be much difficulty, but in Arabia proper the problem is a very prickly one.
Beginning with Arabia Felix, which includes Yamen, the Aden protectorate, and the vague, sprawling province of Hadhramaut, we may be permitted to hope that nothing worse can happen in the Aden protectorate than has happened already; the remoter Hadhramaut has always looked after its own affairs and can continue to do so ”

“ The Phœnicians, Chaldæans, and Orchynians, have familiarity with Leo and the Sun, and are therefore more simple and humane in disposition; they are also studious of astrology, and pay greater reverence than all other nations to the Sun. The people of Arabia Felix are connected with Sagittarius and Jupiter: the country is fertile, and abundantly productive of spices, and its inhabitants are well-proportioned in person, free in all their habits of life, and liberal in all their contracts and dealings. ”

“ In the history of Arabia Felix, collected from various Arabian authors, by Schultens, we find several accounts of the conquest of this country by the Abyssinians, and the epithets continually applied to them, are "blacks" (سود‎) , which Schultens translates Æthiopes, [4] and "people with crisped hair" (crispâ tortilique comâ: [5] ) one of their princes also, suing to the Emperor of Persia, entreats him to drive out "these crows," who are hateful to his countrymen ”

“ The second region, or Arabia Deserta, is bounded on the north and north-east by the Euphrates, on the east by a ridge of mountains which separates it from Chaldea, on the south by Arabia Felix, and on the west by Syria, Judea, and Arabia Petræa. This was more particularly the country first of the Cushites, and afterward of the Ishmaelites; as it is still of their descendants, the modern Bedouins, who maintain the same predatory and wandering habits. ”

“ These golden dreams speedily vanished as the country became more extensively known: and though the Arab tribes of the desert between Syria and the Euphrates acknowledged a nominal subjection to Rome, the intercourse of the Imperial City with Yemen, or Arabia Felix, was confined to the trade which was carried on over the Red Sea from Egypt, and which became the channel through which not only the spices of Arabia, but the rich products of India, and even the slaves [32] and ivory of Eastern Africa, were supplied to the markets of Italy. ”

“ The state of the Homerites.The development of this remarkable people had reached a considerable stage long before the beginning of the Roman rule over Egypt.257 Its native seat, the Arabia Felix of the ancients, the region of Mocha and Aden, is surrounded by a narrow plain along the shore intensely hot and desolate, but the healthy and temperate interior of Yemen and Hadramaut produces on the mountain-slopes and in the valleys a luxuriant vegetation, and the numerous mountain-waters permit in many respects with careful management a garden-like cultivation. ”

“ And as for her being an Arab, the objection is still easier got over. For all the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, especially those of the coast opposite to Saba, were reputed Abyssins, and their country part of Abyssinia, from the earliest ages, to the Mahometan conquest and after. They were her subjects; first, Sabean Pagans like herself, then converted (as the tradition says) to Judaism, during the time of the building of the temple, and continuing Jews from that time to the year 622 after Christ, when they became Mahometans. ”

“ Arabia is also a land of mountains and highlands. The23 most clearly developed system is the extensive range skirting the Red Sea at a distance of from one to three days’ journey from the coast. South of Mecca there are peaks of over 8,000 feet; and beyond, the range broadens out to form the Yemen highlands, a corner of the peninsula worthy of its old name “Arabia Felix.” The mountains along the south coast are more irregular and disconnected until they broaden out a second time between Ras el Had and Ras Mussendum to form the highlands of Oman. ”

“ Mr. Gaskette has colored a strip of it along the Red Sea, about a hundred miles wide, in green, as he has Palestine and the other parts of Turkey in Asia shown before you. A large portion of Arabia consists of deserts, the principal of which is the Syrian in the north.
"Ptolemy, not the king but the geographer, divided Arabia into three sections,—Arabia Petræa, after the city of Petra; Arabia Deserta, the interior; and Arabia Felix (Arabie Heureuse in French) , which does not mean 'the happy land,' as generally translated. ”

“ All the accounts given of them by Arab historians are but fanciful legends. ... In the midst of all the fabulous traits with which these legends abound, we may perceive the remembrance of a powerful empire founded by the Cushites in very early ages, apparently including the whole of Arabia Felix, and not only Yemen proper. We also find traces of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldæa, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian ”

“ When in Arabia Felix, where every sort of provision is exceedingly cheap, where the fruits of the ground, the general food for man, are produced spontaneously, the supporting of a number of wives costs no more than so many slaves or servants ”

“ That pastoral one is, of all, the most enduring. I hear the proudest tribe of Arabia Felix is now reduced by poverty and civilization to sell its last well-bred horse; and that we send out our cavalry regiments to repetitions of the charge at Balaclava, without horses at all; those that they can pick up wherever they land being good enough for such military operations. ”

“ Of the rest of the country which follows after Mesopotamia, and extends as far as Cœle-Syria, the part approaching the river, as well as [a part of] Mesopotamia,676 are occupied by Arabian Scenitæ, who are divided into small sovereignties, and inhabit tracts which are barren from want of water. They do not till the land at all, or only to a small extent, but they keep herds of cattle of all kinds, particularly of camels. Above these is a great desert; but the parts lying still more to the south are occupied by the nations inhabiting Arabia Felix, as it is called. ”

“ But according to others, it was Erythras the son of Perseus who was the king of this country.
According to some writers, from the straits in the Arabian Gulf to the extremity of the cinnamon country is a distance of 5000 stadia,781 without distinguishing whether (the direction is) to the south or to the east.
It is said also that the emerald and the beryl are found in the gold mines. According to Poseidonius, an odoriferous salt is found in Arabia.
[Pg 209] 21. The Nabatæans and Sabæans, situated above Syria, are the first people who occupy Arabia Felix. ”

“ From Heroopolis, situated in that recess of the Arabian Gulf which is on the side of the Nile, to Babylon, towards Petra of the Nabatæi, are 5600 stadia. The whole tract lies in the direction of the summer solstice (i. e. east and west) , and passes through the adjacent Arabian tribes, namely Nabatæi, Chaulotæi, and Agræi. Above these people is Arabia Felix, stretching out 12,000 stadia towards the south to the Atlantic Sea.693
[Pg 190]
[CAS. 768] The first people, next after the Syrians and Jews, who occupy this country are husbandmen. ”

“ Yemen, the Arabia Felix indeed; with a377 splendid climate, a superior Arab population, numerous villages and cities, and with marvellous fertility of soil. Surely these highlands will not remain forever under the rod of oppression; when the hour of deliverance comes, every village should have a mission-school and every city a mission-station. Even now under the Turks work is possible for the large Jewish population. (3) Hassa with its capital Hofhoof and Katif on the coast. (4) The vilayets of Busrah and Bagdad. ”

“ To the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world: a Hero-Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe: see, the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has grown world-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that;—glancing in valour and splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, life-giving. ”

“ If to these central highlands, or Nedjed, taking that word in its wider sense, we add the Djowf, the Ta’yif, Djebel ’Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in short, whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles, we shall find that Arabia contains about two-thirds of cultivated, or at least of cultivable, land, with a remaining third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly to the south. In most other directions the great blank spaces often left in maps of this country are quite as frequently indications of non-information as of real non-inhabitation. ”

“ The Arabs love to sit and swing back and forth as they chant its chapters. And lastly is something that looks very much like an amulet, but which is a traveller’s bag for bread and dates, often fastened to the camel saddle by leather thongs. Bread or dates kept in such a receptacle will keep moist for many, many hours in the hot, dry climate of Arabia.
The Arabs are not skilled as the Japanese and Chinese are with tools, nor are they much given to art of any kind, but you must admit that such every-day things are many of them artistic and some of them really beautiful. ”

“ The merchandise of the East, by way of the road from the Persian Gulf, stocked her marts, and the gold and frankincense caravans from Arabia the Happy brought their stores to increase her wealth. The time of her greatest splendour probably fell in [115] the short reign of Philip the Arabian, who, with the wealth of Rome at his command, guided by his Oriental pride and taste, would lavish adornment on the chief city of his native province, embellishing her streets and squares with triumphs of architectural art. ”

“ For six hundred years after Mohammed’s death Islam and Christendom were nearly equal powers, and it is difficult, even now, to decide which contributed the more to the arts from which modern civilization has sprung. Arabia flourished, as never before, under the Caliphs; yet it does not appear that the life of the inhabitants was materially changed, or that any growth, acquired during the new importance of the country, became permanent. Its commerce was restricted to the products of its narrow belt of fertile shore; an arid desert separated it from Bagdad and Syria ”

“ The kingdom of Oman has extended itself along the eastern shore, nearly to the head of the Persian Gulf. The northern oases, the seat of the powerful sect of the Wahabees, are called Nedjed; and the unknown southern interior, which is believed to be almost wholly desert, inhabited only by a few wandering Bedouins, is known as the Dahna or Akhaf.
Arabia has been inhabited by the same race since the earliest times, and has changed less, in the course of thousands of years, than any other country of the globe, not excepting China. ”