Isli«.
A R A B I A.
fheer was diniinifhed by the pretend ons of the Houls, a ftrong Arabian
tribe between Gombroon and cape Bardiftan, who refufed to pay for
the pbrmiffibn, - “’Bbe name Babrirt fignifies two feasy being feemingfy
an abfurd modern - appellation; for Abulfeday as well as the Arabs of
Lahfa, call fhe ltrge; ffid'Aha’l, a name transferred by D’Anvilie, who
jn Arabia feems rather unfortunate, to the peninfula offSer, about ^6,0
B. iriiles to the E. The inhabitants ‘of Aual, and the fmaller iflesj are
Arabs of the Ghia- perfuafion. ' In the large ifle there is.a fortified town.;
and in the'whole grbnpe there may be forty or fifty mean villages.
AS IATIC ISLANDS;
I n T t|o p vu,cTioN .
general Arrangement of the Afiatic Iflands, including Aujlralafia and.Polynefta.
HAVI'NCr thus completed the cdelcnption of the sw^emunem of
Afia, fo fair as f|h e limits affigoeci to JtHis work Would admit, a
difficult’field of investigation,’opens in the innumerable 'Ample Jflands,
arid tnofe fituated >in the Pacific^ or more ^prcrperly G reat Oriental'
Ocean. The topics abqut to be treated will become rhor'e fcle“ar from
the. infpedtion of Arrowfmith’s chart of tnat o f f i^ OYthe PlanifpherS
on Metcator’s projedtion, with that pioaigidffs ei^anfe of water"tdWard^
the middle. Hence it will appear that, though' modem enterprize ha^e*
failed in the difeovery of a fuppofed Auft.ral continent, (a hope and idea
now difmiffed from geography,) yet ,the "difeoyeries' may; be faid to fcori-
ftitute a fifth part of the w,orld; which accordingly Fabri, and“1 Other
foreign writers of fkill in the fclcrice. Have admitfedy under the name of
Aujlral Lands, Southern Indies, arid other dfenomirilnopSJ''1 including
New Holland, New Guinea,' New Britain, New Ireland, N sC a le donia,
New Zealand, the Friendly Idles,^Society Iflands,.mri’lfla’ftpi'efa^
and,even the Sandwich Iflands in the north.
Thefe regions are, however, of Ip wide aridmfiihdf’a nat,uhe,fcphflft-
rrig of almoft a new continent in the Xouth of Afia, and fcattered groups
of ifles iq the Pacific, many of them nearer to South America than rtp
Afia, while they are chiefly not above twenty degrees to the iduth of the
equator, that the name of Auftral Bands feems very omedtipnable, and
that of Southern Indies' ridiculous. ' Nor indeed can they well be
ic r ;y '■ 'blended