Khan, Khali, Khaul, Khaulitn, of modern Arabic, becomes transparent to general
readers.
Thus, enlarging Bochart’s ingenious comparisons, the E»&<£r of the LXX; the Cha-
blasii of Dionysius (Periegetes); the Eblitcean mountains of Ptolemy, still called AHal;
the Chaulothei of Erastosthenes, and the Chaldcei of Pliny; become resolved, by Forster,
into the powerful tribe of the Beni-Khdled: whose encampments dot the Peninsula
from Damascus to the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb ; from Mekka, on the Arabian coast,
round to the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia; often on sites where some remembrance
of their parental ffavilite appellatives is traditionally preserved “ unto this day.”
“ Se non 6 vero, almeno k ben trovato ” : and, in the present state of knowledge on
Central A r a b i a — wonderfully small, our nineteenth century considered — if Carlyle’s
“ hammer of Thor” might, perhaps, demolish Forster’s picturesque edifice, we doubt
that Thor himself could erect a substitute more solid.
Albeit, ethnology may well be content when Arabia, and especially the shores and
islands of the Persian Gulf, preserve so many reminiscences of three “ Havilahs; ”
among which, through closest application^'of the “ doctrine of chances,” some local
habitation must still exist for the name and lineage of a BUS kite Khaoilah.«>i
21 . nrDD — SBTfH — £ S abtah .’
What may have been the origin of the word Saba, which, simple or compound, has
been preserved in Arabia by H^mitic and Semitic affiliations, from primordial times to
the present, there appears to be no means now of ascertaining. Gesenius derives
Sabaism from Tsaba, the heavenly ‘host’ ; which, as concerns the root Saba, appears
somewhat ex post facto. Arab migration carried this name into Abyssinia, if the Saba
of Strabo be now represented by a town called Essab; so too Josephus imagines Meroe
to have been called Saba, previously to its adoption of the name of Cambyses’s sister;
but Lepsius’s Meroi'te discoveries prove the whole story to be fabulous. 5 Bochart, cautiously,
traced Sabatha, Sobota, of Pliny, through Sophtha, an.island in the Persian
Gulf, to the Massabathce on Median frontiers. Pliny, however, say# “Alramita, quorum
caput Sobotale LX templa muris includens ” ; which fixes this city towards Hadramaut.
Of the three Arabian sites where nominal remains'of Sabtah are now traceable, Vol-
ney’s adoption of Bochart’s index seems most appropriate: that of Ptolemy’s city,
2a<pSa, Saphtha, Sabbatha-metropolis, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, in the province
of Bahrkyn; where the Saab Arabs roam at present, as Forster’s maps confirm.
“ The Homeritse,” states the great hydrographer Jomard, “ the Hadramito, the Cha-
tramotitte, the Sabasi, the Sapharitse, the Omanit®, the Maranit®, the Minimi, the
Thamudeni, lived where nowadays even are the people of Hemyar, the people of Hadramaut,
the people of Saba (or Mariaba), the people of DRafdr, the people o f Oman,
those of Mahrah, those of Mina, of Thamoud, and many other peoples, .of which the
name, any more than the existence, does not appear to have suffered from time.” And
it will manifest the pains now bestowed by Orientalists to discover these Arabian
localities, to add Fresnel’s successes: — “ The famous emporium of Kana is de.cidedly
identified with Hisn-Ghorab and “ the-town of Kharibet, discovered by M. Arnaud,
is the last term of (ZBlius Gallus’s) Roman expedition (Caripeta):”
Though we cannot yet place our finger on the exact spot, there is no reason for see c
ing Sabtah elsewhere than among KUSAite affiliations- colonized on the Persian 6 a^-
If not found already, the place and its tribes will so'on be recovered by the zeal of
Arabian explorers.^02
2 2 . r T S j n — RAaMH — ‘ R aamah.’
Bochart’s acuteness had settled upon p g f of the LXX; Rhegama of Ptolemy; Reg-
mapolis and Kolpos-Regma in Steph. Byzantinus. This name is said by Strabo to signify
I straits ’ ; which meaning singularly corresponds to the narrow entrance of the
Persian Gulf, on the Arabian side of which Forster’s maps fix Raamah, and its. two
colonies Sheba and Dedan; already grouped.together by Ezekiel (xxvii. 20-22).
The inland province of Mahrah preserves the phonetic elements of Raamah; and
there it isthat, at Mirbcit and Zhaf&r, Fresnel’s discoveries of the Ehkbelee tongue, called
also Mahree, establish the existence of a people, distinct from Semitish Arabs; survivors
of the old Himyarite (red) stock: the ¿nrA-skinned Arabians of KUSAife lineage,
represented by the swarthy Dowdsir tribes, as reported by Burckhardt and Wellsted.
These people were called Rhaminitce and Rhabanilce by Roman authors; and Ramss,
an Arab port just inside the Persian Gulf, perfectly answers to the site of Raamah
catalogued among KUSAfte personifications in Xth Genesis.603
23. JOrOD — SBTiKA. — ‘ S a b t e ch ah . ’
“ Sabtaka is thrown by Josephu3 into Abyssinian Ethiopia; by Bochart, into the
Persic Carmania, under pretext of resembling Samycfake: these two hypotheses seem
to us vague and without proofs. Sabtaka has no known trace.” So far Yolney.
Yet Bochart’s suggestion of B for m offers no palseographic difficulties; and if
Samedake could be identified, SaBeTAKe might be Sabteka, situate in Kermhn,,near
the Persian Gulf.
“ The Sabatica Regio of the ancients, a district apparently in the neighborhood of
the Shat-al-Arab, is the only probable vestige I can discover,” says Forster, “ of the
name or settlements of Sabtecha.”
For our purposes, this excellent indication is sufficient. Personifying some locality
or people of KUSAiie origin, probably near the mouth of the Euphrates, the choro-
graphic genealogist of Xth Genesis fixes Sabteka among Arabians of swarthy hue.604
24. — SsBA — ‘ S h e b a . ’ “ Affiliation of R a am a h . ”
[Our SsBA second (B.), ubi supra.)
We have already stated the difficulties of distinguishing which of four Arabian SBAs
— KUSAtie, Yoktmide, and Ketourite or Jokshanide — are assignable now to the chart
of Xth Genesis, more than twenty-skven centuries subsequently to its projection; but
each one, by every process of reasoning upon facts, is circumscribed within Arabian
denominations. If, on the one hand, time has rendered minute dissections nugatory,
on the other it spares us the trouble of seeking elsewhere for historical lights.
Offshoots of R a a m a h , “ Sheba and Dedan” stand contiguously, not only in Xth Genesis,
but in Ezekiel, (xxxviii. 13), and belong to the same neighborhoods; whilst Isaiah’s
KUSA and SeBA” (xliii. 3), united by a conjunction, serves to fix Seba among the dark-
skinned Arabs, where the compiler of Xth Genesis had traced this name’s genealogical
affinities. But, at whatever age (probably Esdraic; i. e., after return from captivity)
the fragmentary documents now called “ Genesis ” were put together, “ a sort of spirit
of investigation and combination was also at work. We are indebted to this,” continues
De Wette, “ for the genealogical and ethnographical accounts contained in the
Pentateuch. They are designed in sober earnest, and are not without some historical
foundation, but are rather the result of fancy and conjecture than of genuine historical
investigation. To test the accuracy of the table of Genesis Xth, compare the following
passages ” : —
Genesis X.
7. “ The sons of KUSA, Seba, and
Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and
Sabtecha. And the sons of R a a m a h ;
Sheba and Dedan.”
Genesis. XXV.
2. “ Abraham [descendant of SAeM]
took a wife . . . Ketourah ; and she bare
him Zimran and dbkshan, Medan, and
Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah : and
J o k s h a n begat Sheba and Dedan.”