mat, 1879,]

PERIPLTTS OP THE EBYTHBfllAN SEA.

137

 

called the islands of K a 1 a i o s. The inhabit-
ants of the adjacent coast are cruel and
treacherous, and see imperfectly in the day-
time.
35. Xear the last headland of the islands of
Kalaios is the mountain called Kalon
(Pulcher),^18 to which succeeds, at no great
distance, the mouth of the Persian Gult!,
where there are very many pearl fisheries.
On the left of the entrance, towering to a
vast height, are the mountains which bear
the name of Asaboi, and directly opposite
on the right yon see another mountain high and

I round, called the hill of Semiramis. The
I strait which separates them has a width of
600 stadia, and through this opening the Persian
Gulf pours its vast expanse of waters far up
into the interior. At the very head of this gulf
there is a regular mart of commerce, called the
city of Apologos, situate near Pasinou-
K h a r a x and the river Euphrates.
36. If you coast along the mouth of the
gulf you are conducted by a sis days' voyage to
another seat of trade belonging to Persis, called
Oman a.^19 Bamgaza maintains a regular
commercial intercourse with both these Persian

(35) Before the mouth of the Persian- Gulf is
reached occurs aheightcalied Kal o n(Fair Mount)
At the last head of the islands of Papias— r&v
ILcnrlav vfjtruv. This reading has been altered by
ITabricius and Schwaubeck to r&v KaXatov
vrjtrw. The Fair Mount, according to Yincent,
would answer sufficiently to Cape FiUam, if
that be high land, and not far from Fillam are
the straits. The great cape which Arabia
protrudes at these straits towards Karmania is
now called Has Mussendom. It was seen from the
opposite coast by the expedition under Nearkhos,
to whom it appeared to be a day's sail distant.
The height on that coast is called Semiramis, and
tbUo StrongylS from its round shape. Mussen-
dom, the^e Asabon akron* of Ptolemy, Yincent says,
*' is a sort of Lizard Point to the Gulf; for all the
Arabian ships take their departure from it with
some ceremonies of superstition, imploring a bless-
ing on their voyage, and setting afloat a toy
like a vessel rigged and decorated, which if it is
dashed to pieces by the rocks is to be accepted by
the ocean as an offering for the escape of the vessel.*'
[The straits between tho island of Mussendom
and tho mainland are called El Bab, and this is
the origin of the name of the Papias islands.—
Miles' Jour. JR. A. Soe. 2Sf. S. vol. x. p. 168.]
The actual width of the straits is 40 miles.
Pliny gives it at 50, and the Peripl&s at 75. Cape
Mussendom is represented in the Periplds as in
Ptolemy by the Mountains of the Asabi which
are described as tremendous heights, black, grim,
and abrupt. They are named from the tribe of
Beni Asab.
» "This" (Hons Pnlcber) says Major-General SGlcs, "is
JebelLahrimor Shaam, the loftiest and moat conspicuous
peak on the whole cape (ilossendom), being nearly 7000
feet high."—Jour. R. As. Soc. (N.S.) to!. X. p. 168 ~ED.
^19 " The city of Omana is Sohar, the ancient capital of
Omana, which, name, as is well known, it then bore, and
Pliny is qnite right in correcting/om*r writers who had
placed it in Caraxoania, on which coast there is no good
evidence that there was a place of this name. Nearohns
does not mention it, and though the author of the Penptas

"We enter now the Gulf itself, and here the Per!-
pl&s mentions only two particulars: the famous
Pearl Fisheries which begin at the straits and
extend to Bahrein, and the situation of a regular
trading mart called Apologos, which lies at
the very head of the Gulf on the Euphrates, and in
the -vicinity of Spasinou Khar as. This
place does not appear to be referred to in any
other classical work, but it is frequently
mentioned by Arabian writers under the name of
Oboleh or Obolegh. As an emporium it took
theplaceof Ter£don or Diridotis, just as
Basra (below which it was situated) under the
second Khaliphate took the place of Oboleh
itself. According to Yincent, Oboleh, or a Tillage
that represents it, still exists between Basra and the
Euphrates. The canal also is called the canal of
Oboleh. KharaxPasinou was situated where
the Karum (the Eulaeus of the ancients)
flows into the Pasitigris, and is represented
by the modern trading town Muhammarah.
It wasfounded by Alexander the Great, andafter its
destruction, was rebuilt by Antiokhos Epiphanes,
who changed its name from Alexandreia to Antio-
kheia. It was afterwards occupied by an Arab
Chief called Pasines, or rather Spasines, who
gave it the name by which it is best known. Pliny
' states that the original town was only 10 miles
from the sea-, but that in his time the existing
place was so much as 120 miles from it. It was
the birth-place of two eminent geographers—
Dionysius Periegefces and Isidores.
(36)   After this  cursory glance at the great
gulf, our author returns to the straits, and at once
of the Erythraean Sea does locate it in Persis, it is pretty-
evident be never visited the place himself, and he must
have mistaken the information he obtained from others*
It was this city of Sohar most probably that bore the ap-
pellation of Emporium Persarom, in which, as Philosturgius
relates, permission was given to Theophilus,tho ambassador
of Constantine, to erect a Christian cnnrch." The Homna
of Pliny may be a repetition of Omana or Sohar, which
he bad already mentioned—Miles in Jour. E. As. Soe.
(N. S.) voL3Lpp. 164-5.-ED.