Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/641

Rh est shore. It was not long before the Emperor had crossed the Red Sea with his army; nor had Phineas lost any time in collecting his scattered forces to oppose him. A battle was the consequence, in which the fortune of Caleb again prevailed.

would appear that the part of Arabia, near Najiran, which was the scene of Caleb's victory, belonged to the Grecian Emperor Justin, because Aretas applied directly to him at Constantinople for succour; and it was at Justin's request only, that Caleb marched to the assistance of Aretas, as a friend, but not as a sovereign; and as such also, Abreha, Governor of Yemen, marched to assist Aretas, with the Abyssinian troops, from the south of Arabia, against the stranger Jews, who were invaders from Palestine, and who had no connection with the Abyssinian Jewish Homerites, natives of the south coast of Arabia, opposite to Saba.

neither of the Jewish kingdoms were destroyed by the victories of Caleb, or Abreha, nor the subsequent conquest of the Persians. In the Neged, or north part of Arabia, they continued not only after the appearance of Mahomet, but till after the Hegira. For it was in the 8th year of that æra that Hybar, the Jew, was besieged in his own castle in Neged, and slain by Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law, from that time called Hydar Ali, or Ali the Lion.

the Arabian manuscripts says positively that this Abreha, who assisted Aretas, was Governor of Arabia Felix, or Yemen; for, by this last name, I shall hereafter call the part of the peninsula of Arabia belonging to the Abyssinians; so that he might very well have been the prince who conversed with Mahomet's father, and lost his army before