Page 174 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

IX.] GULF OF ’AKABAH. 155

covered by extensive date-groves, there are
some mounds, having the appearance of
covering ruins, I consider the absence of
any remains at Dahab of little importance as
affecting its supposed identity; for if they
had escaped being buried in the sand, which
the strong breezes here keeps in constant
agitation, there is no reason to suppose the
adjacent cities would have been constructed
with materials sufficiently massive or durable
to withstand the ravages of so many centuries.
It is more than probable there were but a few
warehouses, as, at a later period of the Indian

trade, when the arrivals were more frequent
than Solomon’s solitary fleet of three years,
neither Berenice, Myos Hormus, nor Arsinoe,
judging from their remains, ever attained any
extent or opulence.
But the decision of a question, interesting
to few excepting the learned, is almost lost
sight of, in the other advantages geography
has received from our examination of this
Gulf. The bifurcation at the extremity,
which so long figured on our maps, is now
shown to have no existence. The true posi-