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and along the shore, the latter being distinguished as Fish-Eaters. Alexander conquered the hill-folk and colonized their capital, Rham- bacia, under his own name (Diodorus Siculus, XVI, 104); while Nearchus fought the coast-folk, reporting them “covered with hair on the body, their nails like wild birds’ claws, used like iron for kill- ing and splitting fish, and cutting soft wood; other things they cut with sharp stones, having no iron.” Strabo (XV, ii, 2) describes their dwellings, made of the bones of whales and great shells; the ribs being used for beams and rafters, and the jawbones for doorways.
Here are more echoes of the early migrations that radiated out- ward from the Persian Gulf. The river Arabis and the Arabians are sufficiently reminiscent of Arabia, while the capital, Rhambacia, ap- pears in Ptolemy as a city of the Rhamnae, derived from the same source. The Oritae are represented by the modern Brahui. Both names have the same meaning, “hill-folk,” one in Greek and the other in Persian; but this is probably no more than a punning trans- lation, like that of Makran into Main Khuran , Ichthyophagi, “fish- eaters.” The country of Ora is rather related to the Uru of Chal- daean place-names; being connected with the sun-worship that survived well into the Christian era. The Brahui are a Dravidian tribe left behind by their race on its^way to Southern India; in earlier days the connection of both with the Persian Gulf was less broken. The name “Makran,’’ as shown by Curzon ( Geographical Journal , VII, 557) is Dravidian; while “Brahui” is thought to refer to the hero of the tribe, Braho, a name having the same root as Abraham ( Imperial Gazetteer of India , IX, 15-17). These people are probably the same as those called by Herodotus (III, 94) “Asiatic Aethiopians,’ ’ and again (VII, 70) as “Aethiopians from the sunrise, ” who were similar to the Aethiopians of Southern Arabia, both peoples being represented in the Persian army, and both having presumably sprung from the same stock; as witness the record in Genesis X, 7, the sons of Cush: Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah: Sheba, and Dedan.” The Cushite name seems to survive in Kej, in the valley of Makran; the “Kesmacoran” of Marco Polo.
The names of the Pharaohs of the XXVth or “Aethiopian” dynasty in Egypt, point to a like origin: Kashta, Shabaka, Piankhi ( cf Pa-anch, Poen, etc.), and Taharka ( cf. Katar, Socotra).
Wellsted (I, ch. v) noted the strong racial similarity between the Beni Genab in South Arabia and the people found on the Makran coast. Holdich ( Geographical Journal , VII, 388) finds the island of Haftalu off the Makran coast — the Astola of Ptolemy, a center of the
