of two brothers," seem to be a reflection of the perpetual conflict between the first and third persons of the Hindu triad.
It is notable that the Hindu name for Socotra appears likewise among the mysterious names of the seven manifestations of the power of AUM in their ritual: "Earth, Sky, Heaven, Middle Region, Place of Births, Abode of the Blest, Abode of Truth;" indicating that the island had its name from the Indian merchants who had "emigrated to carry on trade there (§ 30), especially in this legendary gum of the dracaena, and suggesting that the name is as old as the XIIIth dynasty tale and the Gilgamesh epic.
Another survival of Hindu influence seems to be the mateb or blue silk neck-cord, the badge of baptism in modern Abyssinian Christianity, which suggests, more than any Arab custom, the zennār or sacred cord of the Brahman priest.
(See the references in J. G. Frazer's Pausanias and Golden Bough; Porphyry, de Ant. Nymph., 268; Asiatic Researches, V, 348; Maurice, Indian Antiquities.)
30. Yields no fruit.—This must be understood as referring to agriculture; this island was particularly rich in natural products of commercial value. Aloes, dragon's blood and frankincense were all plentiful, also myrrh and other gums; but owing to the monopoly of the Chatramotitae these went to market at Cana. Bent found many evidences of this early trade, but no present exploitation; the walled aloe-fields deserted, the frankincense, myrrh and dragon's blood uncollected, and the energies of the people employed in the production of clarified butter. The island seemed full of cattle, and the Sultan kept a special dhow to carry the skins and jars of clarified butter to the mainland, where it was in demand as far as Muscat and Zanzibar. (Southern Arabia, p. 346).
31. Subject to the Frankincense Country.—By speech, race and political allegiance Socotra has been joined to the Mahra district of South Arabia from time immemorial. La Roque's map of 1716 showed it "depending upon the Kingdom of Fartach" (Hogarth, op. cit., p. 45); Wellsted, writing in 1838 (op. cit., 450–3) found it jealously mentioned as a dependency of the Sheikh of Kissin, "formerly called King of Furtak;" and Bent found the same. (See also the numerous reports of the Austrian Expedition.)
31. Garrisoned; for defence against the two enemies of the Chatramotitae, by whom they were hard pressed on either side: namely, the Homerites and the Parthians.
31. The Bay of Omana, being that portion of the Bay of Sachalites lying east of Syagrus, is the modern Kamar Bay. (16°
