The settlers in Arabia are by native writers divided into two classes—the old tribes, who be longed to the fabulous period of history, and are long since extinct, and the present inhabit ants. The latter are classed either among the 'pure or genuine,' or the Mostorabi, the mixed or naturalized Arabs. A 'pure' Arab boasts of be ing descended from Kachtan (the Joktan of Scrip ture, Gen. x :29), and calls himself al Arab al Araba, 'an Arab of the Arabs.' a phrase of sim ilar emphasis with St. Paul's 'Hebrew of the He brews' (Phil. iii :5). The mixed Arabs are sup posed to be descended from Ishmael by a daugh ter of Modad, king of Hedjaz, the district where the Ishmaefites chiefly settled. The Kachtanites, on the other hand. occupied the southern part of the peninsula, for Kachtan's great-grandson Saba gave name to a kingdom, one of whose queens (called by the Arabians Balkis) visited Solomon (I Kings x:t). A son of Saba was Hilmar, who gave name to the famous dynasty of the Himyarites (improperly written Homer ites), that seem to have reigned for many cen turieg over Sabrea and part of Hhadramaut.
4. Soil. The soil of the Sinaitic peninsula is in general very unproductive, yielding only palm trees, acacias, tamarisks from which exudes the gum called manna, coloquintida, and dwarfish, thorny shrubs. Among the animals may be men tioned the mountain goat, the beden of the Arabs, gazelles, leopards, a kind of marmot called waber, the sheeb, supposed by Colonel Hamilton Smith to be a species of wild wolf-dog, etc.; of birds there are eagles, partridges, pigeons, the katta, a species of quail, etc. There are serpents, as in ancient times (Nunn. xxi:4, 6); and travelers speak of a large lizard called dhab, common in the desert, but of unusually frequent occurrence here. The peninsula is inhabited by Bedouin Arabs, and its entire population was estimated by Burck hardt at not more than 4,00o souls.
This part of Arabia must ever be mem orable as the scene of the journeying of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land. Ac cording to Niebuhr, Robinson, etc., they crossed the Red Sea near Suez (see also Von Ritter, Sir J. W. Dawson and others), but the tradition of the country fixes the point of transit eight or ten miles south of Suez, opposite the place called Avoun Mousa, i. e., the Fountains of Moses, where Robinson recently found seven wells, some of which, however, were mere excavations in the sand. About 15% hours (33 geographical miles) southeast of that is the Well of Hawarah, the Marah of Scripture, whose bitter water is pro nounced by the Arabs to be the worst in these regions. Two or three hours south of Hawarah the traveler comes to the \Vady Glitirlindel, sup posed to be the Elim of Moses. From the plain of El-Kaa, which Robinson takes to be the desert of Sin, not to be confounded with that of Zin, which belonged to the great desert of Kadesh. they
would enter the Sinaitic range probably along the upper part of \Vady Feiran and through the \Vady-esh-Sheikh, one of the principal valleys of the peninsula. The Arabs call this whole cluster of mountains Jebel-et-Tur; the Christians gener ally designate it as 'Sinai,' and give the name of Horeb to a particular mountain, whereas in Scrip ture the names are used interchangeably.
5. Productions. The principal animals are the horse, famed for its form, beauty and endur ance, camels, sheep, asses, dogs, the gazelle, tiger, lynx and monkey, quails, peacocks, parrots, os triches, vipers, scorpions and locusts. Of fruits and grains, dates, wheat, millet, rice, beans and pulse are common. It is also rich in minerals, especially in lead.
6. Zo'ology. In the animal kingdom Arabia possesses, in common with the adjacent regions, the camel, panthers, lynxes, hymnas, jackals, ga zelles, asses, wild and tame, monkeys, etc. But the glory of Arabia is its horse. As in no other country is that animal so much esteemed, so in no other are its noble qualities of swiftness, en durance, temper, attachment to man, so finely developed. Of the insect trihes, the locust, both from its numbers and its destructiveness, is the most formidable scourge to vegetation. The Arabian seas swarm with fish, sea-fowl, and shells; coral abounds in the Red Sea, and pearls in the Persian Gulf.
7. Dit.'isions. The early Greek geographers, such as Eratosthenes and Strabo, mention only two divisions of this vast region. Happy and Des ert Arabia. But after the city of Petra, in Idurnma, had become celebrated as the metropolis of a commercial people, the Nabath:eans, it gave name to a third division, viz., Arabia Pefra'a, not Stony, hut Petrman Arabia; and this threefold division, which first occurs in the geographer Ptolemy, who flourished in the second century, has obtained throughout Europe ever since.
I. Arabia Felix, .frabia Eltekrmon, or Pliny's Natty ,-Irabia. The name has commonly been supposed to owe its origin to the variety and richness of the natural productions of this portion of the country, compared with those of the other two divisions. Some, however, regard the epithet 'happy' as a translation of its Arabic name Ft men. which, though primarily denoting the land of the right hand, or south, also bears the secondary sense of happy, prosperous. This part of Arabia lies between the Red Sea on the west and the Persian Gulf on the cast, the boundary to the north being an imaginary line drawn be tween their respective northern extremities, Akaba and Basra or Ilussora. It thus embraces by far the greater portion of the country known to us as Arabia.