Oman.[1] More to the north, along the Persian Gulf, lay several other unimportant districts, included chiefly under the modern name of Lachsa.
The Arabian peninsula is considered by Niebuhr as an immense pile of mountains, encircled with a belt of flat, arid, sandy ground, which extends from Suez around the whole peninsula to the mouth of the Euphrates, and is continued on the north by the province of Petra and the deserts of Syria. The principal mountain chain runs nearly parallel with the Red Sea, at a distance of from thirty to eighty miles, increasing in elevation towards the south. Another chain runs from the southern part, parallel with the ocean, to the mountainous shores of Oman. The interior is believed to be an elevated table land, occupied towards the north by a series of deserts. The Montes Marithi of Ptolemy, the Nedjed el Arud, appear to be a ridge of limestone rocks, stretching towards the south, and gently declining towards the east. Between them and the districts of Yaman and Oman is the desert of Alkaf, which is said once to have been a terrestrial paradise, till, for the impiety of its inhabitants, it was covered by a deluge of sand.[2] In the maritime regions the Arabian towns were few and inconsiderable, and were chiefly ports or trading towns. The inhabi-
