Page 473 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

432 NAKAB EL HAJAR [CH.

tian ruins. We have (as in them) the same
inclination in the walls, the same form of
entrance, and the same flat roof of stones.

Its situation, and the mode in which the in­
terior is laid out, seem to indicate that it
served both as a magazine and a fort. I

think, therefore, we may with safety adopt
the conclusion that Nakab el Hajar, and the
other castle which we have discovered, were

erected during a period when the trade from
India flowed through Arabia towards Egypt,
and from thence to Europe. Thus Arabia

Felix, comprehending Yemen, Saba, and Ha-
*
dramaut, under the splendid dominion of the
Sabsean or Homerite dynasty, seems to have
*
merited the appellation of which she boasted.
The history of these provinces is involved
in much obscurity, but Agatharchides, before

the Christian era, bears testimony, in glowing
colours, to the wealth and luxury of the Sa-
bseans, and his account is heightened rather

than moderated by succeeding writers. This
people, before MArbe j* became the capital of

• The ancient people called Himyari by the modern Arabs
were probably called Homei’ri by their ancestors, as their territory
corresponds with that of the Homeritse of Ptolemy.—Geogr.vi. 6.
'I * The Mariaba of the Greeks.—Strabo, xvi., p. 778.