Page 16 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 1,2

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CHAPTER I

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PHYSICAL SURVEY

Area.
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Arabia prouer is a great square-ended peninsula, whose axis
is inclined conskL-sably east of south, between the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf. Its mean breadth is about 7UU miles, its extreme length
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‘about 1,20ft; and its'total content rather greater than that of the
Indian Peninsula. Its inhabitants call it generally ‘ The Isle of
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the. Arabs’, using the word Jezlrah, which is applied as much to
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peninsular.as to strictly insular areas. In fact, Arabia is so far cut
c/if from the rest of continental Asia by a desert barrier, the Northern
Nefud, that, in social respects, it is of insular character.
' For present purposes Arabia is to be understood as 'limited on
1 the north-by.the desert of the Nefud, lying on or about latitude
30° N., or a line drawn from the head of the Gulf of Akaba to the •-
mouth of the Shatt el-‘Arab. It is unnecessary to discuss the
academic question whether we ought or ought not to include also
in ‘ Arabia ’, as the ancient geographers did, the great triangle of
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- steppe, the Hamad or Syrian Desert, which lies north of tire Nefud.
Physically and ethnographically there is, indeed, little distinction
‘ to be drawn between this steppe and the peninsula to the south
of it; but since the social and political relations of the latter are in
many respects peculiar, it is convenient to give it consideration by '
itself.
On the other three sides—west, south, and east—the boundaries
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. ••• : of Arabia are, of course, seas : the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and
the Gulf of Oman prolonged by the Persian Gulf.
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Physical Features.
Relief.

As a whole the peninsula resembles a broad and stout shelf
sloped up sideways from east to west. The fall towards the
Persian Gulf is long and gentle, the return to the Red Sea short *
and steep: The highest land-levels, therefore, are in the west,
being survivals of an originally much higher general land-level’
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