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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(MAY, 1879.
33. From the port of Moskha onward to Asik h, a distance of about 1500 stadia, runs a range of hills pretty close to the shore, and at its termination there are seven islands bearing the name of Zenobios, beyond which again we come to another barbarous district not subject to any power in Arabia, but to Persis. If when sailing by this coast you stand well out to ses so as to keep a direct course, then at about a distance from the island of Zenobios of 2000 stadia you arrive at another island, called that of Sarapis, lying off shore, say, 120 stadia. It is about 200 stadia broad and 600
long, possessing three villages inhabited by a savage tribe of Ikhthyophagoi, who speak the Arabic language, and whose clothing consists of a girdle made from the leaves of the cocoa-palm. The island produces in great plenty tortoise of excellent quality, and the merchants of Kand accordingly fit out little boats and cargo-ships to trade with it.
34. If sailing onward you wind round with the adjacent coast to the north, then as you approach the entrance of the Persian Gulf you fall in with a group of islands which lie in a range along the coast for 2000 stadia, and are
healthy, but its unhealthiness seems to have been distance from the continent. It was still indesignedly exaggerated.
habited by a tribe of fish-eaters in the time of (33) Beyond Moskha the coast is mountain Ebn Batuta, by whom it was visited. ous as far as Asikh and the islands of Zeno. On proceeding from Sarapis the adjacent biog-a distance excessively estimated at 1500 coast bends round, and the direction of the voyage stadia. The mountains referred to are 5000 feet in changes to north. The great cape which forms height, and are those now called Subaha. Asikh is the south-eastern extremity of Arabia called R&sreadily to be identified with the Hasek of Arabian el-Had flat. 22° 33' N. long. 59° 48' .l in here geographers. Edrisi (I. p. 54) says: "Thence indicated, but without being named; Ptolemy (from Marbat) to the town of Håsek is a four calls it Koroda mo'n (VI. vii. 11.) days' journey and a two days' sail. Before Hasok (34) Beyond it, and near the entrance to the are the two islands of Khartan and Martan Persian Gulf, occurs, according to the Periplus, a Above H & sek is a high mountain named Bous, group of many islands, which lie in a range along which commands the sea. It is an inconsiderable the coast over a space of 2000 stadia, and are town but populous." This place is now in ruins, called the islands of Kalaiou. Here our author but has left its name to the promontory on which is obviously in error, for there are but three groups it stood (Ras Hasek, lat. 17° 23 N. long. 55° 20 of islands on this coast, which are not by any E. opposite the island of Hasiki]. The islands of means near the entrance of the Gulf. They lie Zenobios are mentioned by Ptolemy as seven in beyond Maskat (lat. 23° 38' N. long. 58° 36' E.) and number, and are those called by Edrisi Khartan extend for a considerable distance along the and Martan, now known as the Kuriyan Batinah coast. The central group is that of the Muriyâ n islands. The inhabitants belonged to Deymaniyeh islands (probably the Damnia of an Arab tribe which was spread from Hasek to Pliny) which are seven in number, and lie nearly R&s-el-Ħad, and was called Beit or Beni Jenabi, opposite Birkeh slat 23° 42 N. long. 57° 55 E.]. whence the Greek name. M. Polo in the 31st The error, as Müller suggests, may be accounted chapter of his travels "discourseth of the two! for by supposing that the tract of country called islands called Male and Female," the position of El Batinah was mistaken for islands. This tract, which he vaguely indicates by saying that "when which is very low and extremely fertile, stretches you leave the kingdom of Kesmacoran (Mek- from Birkeh [lat. 23 42 N. long. 67° 55' E.] ran) which is on the mainland, you go by sea onward to Jibba, where high mountains approach some 500 miles towards the south, and then you the very shore, and run on in an unbroken chain find the 2 islands Male and Female lying about to the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The islands 30 miles distant from one another." (See also are not mentioned by any other author. for the Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 396 note).
Cala e ou insula e of Pliny (VI. xxxii. 150) Beyond Asikh is a district inhabited by must, to avoid utter confusion, be referred to the barbarians, and subject not to Arabia but to Persis. coast of the Arabian Gulf. There is a place called Then succeeds at a distance of 200 stadia beyond the El Kilhat, the Akilla of Pliny (lat. 22° 40 N. islands of Zenobio s the island of Sarapis, long. 59° 24' E.)-but whether this is connected with (the Ogyris of Pliny) now called Masira [lat. 20° the Kalaiou islands of the Periplus is uncertain 10 to 20° 42' N., long. 58° 37' to 58° 59' E.] opposite [Conf. Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 48. El Kilhát, south that part of the coast where Oman now begins. of Masket and close to şar, was once a great The Periplas exaggerates both its breadth and its port.]
