Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/152

 civilization and religion similar to and derived from the Chaldaean. About 1800 B. C., according to the Arab historians, Joktanite tribes entered and conquered South Arabia, but were largely absorded by the Cushite stock; as a result of which the second, or Sabaean, empire of Ad was formed, in which the Joktanites became the sacred and land-owning caste, while the political and economic activities remained with the Cushites. This was probably the power that dealt with the Egyptians under the XVIIIth dynasty, as pictured at Deir-el-Bahri; concerning which the publication of the Egypt Exploration Fund seems a little too positive that the "Land of Punt" could not be in Arabia because the faces of the Punt people were not Semitic. The testimony of Arabia would be at fault if they were. Later the Sabaean Cushites, conquered by the Banu Ya‘rub, a Joktanite stock from Yemen, migrated into Africa, and establishing themselves in Abyssinia, continued the ancient conflict for six centuries more.

The account of Ibn Khaldun (Kay's edition, pp.179–80) gives a hint of the northern origin of the "Adites." Hadramaut, Ash-Shihr and Oman, he says, "originally belonged to Ad, from whose people it was conquered by the Banu Ya‘rub, son of Kahtan (Joktan). It is said that the Banu Ad were led thither by Rukaym son of Aram, who had formerly visited the country in company with the Prophet Hud. He returned to the people of Ad and led them in ships to the country and to its invasion. They wrested it from the hands of its inhabitants, but they were themselves subsequently conquered by the Banu Ya‘rub, son of Kahtan. Kahtan ruled over the country, and it was governed by his son Hadramaut, after whom it was named."

Makrizi varies the legend by making Ad son of Kahtan, by whom he was made ruler over Babylonia, and his brother Hadramaut over "Habassia;" and he preserves a memory of the trade of the Incense-Land with India, in the tale of a hero of that land who came by night to the land of the Indians in the form of a vulture, whence he returned bearing seeds of the green pepper, as proof of his journey.

It is regrettable that Bent could not have learned more of the local faith of the Gara tribe, exemplified at the annual reunion at the Dirbat lakes, which is probably an interesting survival of the ancient faith. For as the Mahri represent the Himyarite conquerors of the incense coast-land, so do the Gara represent to some extent the earlier inhabitants. Bent found a state of armed truce under the restraining influence of Muscat; Haines, Carter, and Cruttenden had found the villages of the plain fighting among themselves, and the mountain folk fighting with the plain, the gatherers with the overlords, as of old. Bent tells enough, however, to indicate the worship