Page 262 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

588 Records of Bahrain

T1IE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN. 207

though tho traces of a cross and a half-obliterated Syrian
inscription show that in later times it must havo been used as
a Christian hermitago. Geographical commentators havo
been usually contont to identify Kharak with the *'I/capo9 or
'I%upa of the Greeks, where there was a shrine to Apollo
and Diana, but tho measurements arc quite unsuitable. Icarus,
60 named, it is said, by Alexander, was found by Archias, the
king’s first exploring officer sent from Babylon, to bo only
distant 120 stadia (ten or twelve miles) from the mouth of tho
Euphrates; and tho evidence of Androsthcncs, who conducted
a later survey, further shows that it was close to the Arabian
coast.1 It has probably been long ago absorbed in the new
land of the Bubian Island, formed by the continued deposit of
alluvium, and it is useless, therefore, now to search for the
6itc. It is a subject of more interest, as indicating the line
of advance by which the primitive Turanian colony must have
approached tho Euphrates, to observo that Ncarchus passed
another island sacred to Neptune (Ilea or Oannes), as far
cast as Oaracta or Kkhm,2 so that the inference would seem
to be, that the first immigrants came from the Indian Ocean,
but whether from India itself, or from Egypt by the lied
Sea and tho southern coast of Arabia, cannot at present be
decided. On ono side there is the remarkable tradition
preserved by Diodorus that " Bclus, the son of Neptune (i.c.
f Merodach, the 6on of Ilea), led a colony from Egypt into
the province of Babylon, and fixing his scat on tho river
Euphrates, consecrated Priests, whom the Babylonians call
Ckaldccans, and who observe the motions of the stars in

.1 Vincent, in lu's Commerce and Navigation of tho Ancients, vol. i. p. 522,
would identify tho Icarus visited by Archias with tho islaud of I'clichch oil Crane
Harbour, but admits that the distance docs not correspond; -while ho supposes
Ptolemy’s Jehara to ho a distinct island and one of tho Bahrein group. When
wo consider tho enormous extent of now land, at least fifty miles in length, that
has been formed at the mouth of tho Euphrates since tho time of Alexander, it
must bo evident that it is a hopeless task to attempt to verify the Greek measure­
ments by a comparison with modern distances.
2 Vincent supposes Neptune’s Island, noticed by Ncarchus, to bo the modern
Angar, or as it is now called Jlinjdm, but Angar or Argan is almost necessarily
Organa, and Neptune’s Island, soon from it iu tho oiling, can only be, I think,
tho Greater Tomb. Argan or llivjdm, whero wo now havo a telegraph station,
is, it must bo remembered, oxactly in the lino of navigation un tho Gulf and closo
to ICishm, so that it could not possibly bo described ns “ tui islet in tho oiling.”