ags „ - o n ,» over the -wildest tracts of Arabia’s hdgar, “ stone,’’.desert: their drome.
d a ’ies are precious at Cairo, Mecca, Aleppo, Bagdad, and Ispahan. From them msued
Mohammed; -whose Korin is'the monotheistic code of religious and moral law to
above one hundred millions of mankind in Europe, Asia, Africa, and India s islands:
their tongue, “ the pure Koriysh," for twelve centuries has been the envied attainment
of poets, historians, and philosophers, of their own exalted race, and of its
Arabian contemporaries during consecutive generations.
By “Beni-Qahtdn,” sons of IKTN, we have hitherto implied the Joktamdes in general;
but the great tribe in Arabia now calling itself Bnd-KaMim claims the direct ineage of
this son of fiBR. They are traced in the KatanUce, Kithebamtce, and Kcttabam, of Ptolemy,
of Dionysius; back to the C a lla g e s , KaUdUnum, of Eratosthenes |
the third century n, o .: while their existence in Arabia is attested by the compiler of
Xth Genesis many generations anterior.-to the age of the Cyrenian geograp ler.
With the admirable tabulation of the “ Settlements of Joktan,” and thei maps that
Forster has appended to his geography, the reader can verify for himself the accuracy
of the following schedule of IoKTaNs affiliations.643
“And IoKTaN engendered”
59. TTlobN — ALMTJDD — ‘A lmodad.’
The Allumaeota, Almodad, A’XXovpacSra,, of Ptolemy, a people of central Arabia
Felix, represent ALMUDaD by general consent.644
60. t]b& — SLP — 4 Sheleph.’ I H H | H
Ptolemy’s Salapeni, Salupeni, the Greek transposition of “ M e L e P A , ” sons of
S h e l e p h , are -equally certain: now represented by the'tnbe of Metiyr.
61. mcnifn — KATsRMTTTi — 4 H azarhaveth.’
Who unacquainted with corrupt Chaldee vocalisations, foisted in the sixth century
-after Christ upon the old Hebrew Text (under the name I M points), would see
that the writer of Xth Genesis here wrote Kh&dramautt the very,name which the
Arabs still give to their province of Badramdut, or Khdzramdt. .
This naine, “ in the Septuagint version, is written W M the first syllable being
dropped; by St. Jerome (a well-versed Orientalist), in the Vulgate, written Asarmoth;
the article being incorporated with the name, or the aspirate omitted, conformably
with the dialect of the Nabathseans; by Pliny, Atramitce, and Chatramotita ; and by
Ptolemy, Adramita, Chathramitce, and Chatramotita or Calhramonita, : no lesi: than
by Strabo. “ So Hadramaut,” comments Forster upon Bochart, “ 18 “ od^ d “
Hazarmoveth, merely by the use of the diacritic points, . . . an ar 1 c , y ^
learned and reverend Orientalist, “ allowedly, o< recent and rabbinical invention.
The tribe and territory of Haobamaut being fully identified in Xth Genesis, the
only salient point of interest connected with its later history, is the mission - we follow
Mr. P la t e d of a “ priest of Nagrane, the capital of Christian Hadhramafit, to
China, in the seventh century of our era; whose s u c c e s s f u l voyage is attested y
' bilinguar stone, in Chinese and Syriac (dated A. n. 782), discovered at Si-Gan-Fu in
1625 ; ■which inscription is reputed to he genuine.646
62. m * — IK K h — c Jerah.’
This tribe of Arabia, under the Arabic title of Ydreb-len-Qahm, “ Y&reb son of
Joktan •” or of Aboo-V-Yemtm, I father of Yemen ;” was pointed out by Golius, upon
Arab authority, as “ Pater populorum Arabiee Felicis; primus Arjhiooe Imgp» auctor.
Forster, continuing his emendations of Bochart, states that ! « ■ LXX is
written (Jarach) ; by St. Jerome, lare ; by the modern Arabs Jerha or Scr£
(pronounced JercAit, SercAS); and also, as shall presently be shoWn, Sherah or Sherafy ,
Serene or Zohran: ” •— a name thrice registered by Ptolemy, “ in his Insula Jerachceo-
rum, on the Arabian Gulf, S, of Djedda, and in his Vicus Jerackceorum, on the Lar or
Zar river, in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf; a town and an island bearing in common
this proper name, although separated from each other by a space of 15°, or more than
one thousand geographical miles 1 ”
It was Bochart’s acuity, as our author honestly remarks; that restored Ptolemy’s
vomi previously rendered insula accipitrum, or “ the Isle of Hawks,” to its patriarchal
origin; insula Jerachaeorum, i. e., “ the island of the Beni Jerah.” But this father
of European commentators on Xth Genesis did more. He showed that tinoAtilaei of
Agatharcides were identical, not merely with the tribe Beni-JIilal of the Nubian
geographer; but also with Ptolemy’s “ insula Ierakiorum ;” for the reason that Rilal
means “ moon ” in Arabic, just as lerak'h does in Hebrew.
Most successfully does Forster exhibit the settlements of IeRaKA within “ a vast
triangle, formed by the mouth of the Zar river, on the Persian Gulf; the town of Djar
(the Zaamrn reg. of Ptolemy) on the coast of the Hedj&z, twenty English miles south
of Yembo; and the district of Beni Jeuah (part of the ancient Katabania), or the
southwestern angle of the peninsula, terminating at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb;”
and the probability that the great-tribe, known as the Mined in classical ..geography,
belonged to IeRaKA-tare affiliations, is also by him perspicuously elucidated, e4?
63. Dinn — H D U R M — 4 H adoram.’
By Fresnel this name is considered to be the same as Djourhoum; of whom Arabian
tradition reckons an elder branch, the old Jorhamites, among extinct, and a younger,
the Koranic Jorhamites, among existing families. Jorham is the “ Arabum Bejazensium
pater” of Pococke; and Bochart associated the name with the Drimati of Pliny, and
with Cape Corodamon; which last, by the facile transposition of D for R, is Cape
Badoramus, or of HDURM. Volney accepts Adrama for their natural representative;
confirmed by Forster in Badrama. and thus, carried onwards through the classical
Chatramis, Dacharcenioiza of Ptolemy, to the Dora and Dharree of P lin y ; they are
perpetuated in the modern town and tribe of Dahra: at the same time that Ras-el-
Had now preserves one abbreviation of the name, and Bunder-Do'R.A.M. another on
the yery promontory “ Hadoramum ” at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.64«
64. ill— AUZL — 4 XJzal. ’
The native Jews of &maa/capital of Yemen, have abundantly borne witness that
ATJZaL was its ancient Arabian appellative, as, to this day, it is among themselves.
The “ Javan from AUZaL” of Ezekiel (xxvii. 19,) must be, therefore, as Yolney and
Forster unite in indicating, not Grecian Ionia, but a town in Yemen, now called Deifcln.
Ocelis of Ptolemy, Ocila of Pliny, recognizable in the modern Celia; together with
Ausara, a town of the Gebanitce or Yemenites; are relics of AUZaL long patent
through the scholarship of Bochart.649
65. nbp“I— D K L H — ‘ D iklah.’
In the Dulkhehtce of Himyar, and the tribe Dhu-’l-Kalaah of Yemen, Orientalists
perceive this affiliation of Joktan; that, perhaps, has carried along with it some remembrance
o f an ante-historical sojourn on the Dikle, or Tigris: if, as Bochart suggested,
its name have no affinity to nukhl, a palm tree.” 666
66. Snip — aUBL — ‘ ObIl.’
Among nine* names of existing Arab tribes identified by Fresnel with biblical appellatives
(after the rejection of more than forty of the latter as irrecognizable) Abil is
• one* But, it seems more than probable that a branch of these loklanidce crossed the