for permission to trade there; Hindu shipping was stopped at Ocelis (§ 25).
22. Saua is identified by Sprenger with the Sa'b of Ibn Mogâwir, (13° N., 44° E.). Ritter and Müller, following Niebuhr, prefer the modern Ta'is (13° 35′ N., 43° 55′ E.), in the mountains about 40 miles above Mocha.
22. Mapharitis is the country of the Ma'âfir, a tribe belonging to the Himyaritic stock, whose chief or sheikh had, evidentally, especial privileges from his "lawful king" (§ 23) Charibael. Their location was in the southern Tehama.
22. Cholaebus is the Arabic Kula'ib.
23. Saphar, mentioned by Arabian geographers as Zafar, is located by Niebuhr about 100 miles N. E. of Mocha on the road to Sanaa, near the modern town of Yerum, some miles southeast of which, on the summit of a circular hill, its ruins still exist. Zafar was the capital of the Homerite dynasty, displacing Marib, that of the Sabaean, Timna of the Gebanite, and Carna of the Minaean. Here, in the 4th century A. D., a Christian church was built, following negotiations between the Roman Emperor Constantius and the Homerite King Tubba ibn Hassan, who had embraced Judaism. In the 6th century it was the seat of a bishopric, one incumbent of which, St. Gregentius, resented a profanation of the church at Sanaa by certain of the Koreish, inspired the Abyssinian government, then ruling in Yemen, to undertake a disastrous expedition against Mecca.
23. Charibael.—This is the Arabic Kariba-îl, and means "God blessed (him)." (Hommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition, p. 84.) Glaser has shown this to be a royal title, rather than a name, and has edited numerous inscriptions of a king named Kariba-îl Watar Juhan'im who ruled about 40—70 A. D., and whom he identifies with this Charibael. (Die Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika, pp. 37–8.)
23. Homerites and Sabaites.—Both were of the Joktanite race of South Arabia, the former being the younger branch. In the tribal genealogy in Genesis X, we are shown their relation to the Semites of the North. Three of the children of Shem are given as Elam, Asshur, and Arphaxad. Arphaxad's son was Salah, and his grandson Eber. These names are associated with Babylonia and Chaldaea. Eber's second son was Joktan, of which the Arabic form is Kahtan, which appears farther south along the Persian Gulf, in the peninsula of El Katan. Of the sons of Joktan, most are identified with the southern coast; two of them being Hazarmaveth (Hadramaut), and Jerah (cf. the Jerakôn Komê of Ptolemy, north of Dhofar). The last-named the Arabs call Yarab: his son was Yashhab (cf.
