afforested. The Laeanitic Gulf, the present Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba, extends from the island of Nessa about one hundred and eighty kilometers to the north, and its average width is eighteen kilometers. Not much is left of the Nabataean villages once situated near it. Only the small palm groves on the coast, the valley dikes for irrigation, and the low garden walls inland show that peasants once worked there. The position of the territory of the Bythemani cannot be fixed precisely from the statements of Agatharchides. He would place it beyond the Laeanitic Gulf, and from all accounts it was close to the sea. It is probably identical with the lower part of the al-Abjaẓ valley known as al-ʻEfâl, or al-ʻEfâr. This is a lowland more than fifty kilometers long by twenty kilometers broad and bordered on the north and east by high mountains and straggling hills. It contains a sufficiency of water, and on the banks of the channels of the separate valleys, especially of al-ʻEfâl, there are spacious meadows covered with grass and various kinds of clover (nefel). It is not certain whether wild camels actually grazed there at one time. In the works of no writer using an independent source have I found any reference to wild camels in Arabia, and it cannot be believed that they existed in the territory of the Bythemani, surrounded as it was by Nabataean settlements. More probably they were herds of camels grazing freely but belonging to definite owners and guarded in the same way as cattle. The mules mentioned by Agatharchides might presuppose horses also, but there is no reference to them. By deer are perhaps meant white antelopes, which are to be seen in the region today also; whereas deer proper were and still are unknown. In these regions of Arabia lions are completely extinct. There are still many wolves and panthers. The bay five hundred stades (79 km.) long, which Agatharchides mentions, is identical with the strip of sea seventy-five kilometers long by fifteen kilometers broad, which is bordered on the east and north by the coast, on the south and west by the shallows, islands, and islets, and which extends from Târân eastward and terminates by Cape Mṣajbe Šarma.
The coast line of this bay, together with the oases of ʻAjnûna, Šarma, Terîm, and al-Mwêleḥ, and the adjacent eastern uplands, belonged to the Batmizomani tribe. Of the three islets mentioned, Salydo is perhaps identical with the islet of Ṣela’; Sukabya with Ǧobʻa, or, as it is also pronounced, Jobʻa; and the islet dedicated to Isis perhaps corresponds to Barḳân. The stony shore, stretching for a long distance and belonging to the Thamudenoi, extends to the southeast from Cape as-Sabḫa. It has very few bays, and there are only two places, one by the settlement of Ẓbe’ and the other south of al-ʻWejned, where ships can safely anchor.
According to Diodorus, Bibl. hist., III, 43 f., beyond the Cape (at the entrance to the Gulf of Heroöpolis) it is possible to reach the Laeanitic Gulf, near which are situated numerous villages of the so-called Nabataean Arabs. These folk dwell for some distance along the coast and in quite an extensive region inland, for they are unusually numerous and possess an incredible number of cattle. Farther on, there extends an irrigated plain, where wild grass, medic, and lotus clover grow to the height of a man by the springs which flow on all sides. The rich and extensive pastures feed not only innumerable herds of cattle of various kinds but also wild camels, deer, and gazelles. These