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we had found the object of which we were in search, and that the oracle which guided the steps of the old frankincense merchants of Dhofar was here.

We now pursued our way along the coast-line of Dhofar in an easterly direction. Wali Suleiman entertained us for a night at a farm he has built at a place called Rizat, the land around which is watered by an abundant stream. His garden was rich in many kinds of fruit, and on our arrival, hot and weary from the road, he spread a carpet for us under the shade of a mulberry tree while our camp was being pitched, and ordered a slave to pick us a dishful of the fruit, which was exceedingly grateful. Besides these, he provided us with papyas, gourds, vegetables, and all sorts of delicacies to which we had been strangers during our wanderings in the Gara mountains. In this genial retreat Wali Suleiman passes much of his time, leaving behind him at Al Hafa the cares of state and the everlasting bickerings in his harem.

The next morning, refreshed and supplied with the requisites for another journey, we started off again in our easterly course towards Takha, the most important village at the east end of the plain of Dhofar. As we rode across the plain we were perpetually harassed by the thought as to where the excellent harbour could be, mentioned by all ancient writers as frequented by the frankincense merchants, and which modern writers, such as Dr. Glaser and Bunbury, agree in considering to be some little way west of Merbat. Yakout tells us how the ancient crafts on their way to and from India tarried here during the monsoons, and he further tells us that it was twenty parasangs east of the capital. The Periplus speaks of it as Moscha, Ptolemy as Abyssapolis, and the Arabs as Merbat; but as there is no harbourage actually at Merbat, it clearly could not be there. So as we went along we pondered on this question, and wondered if this celebrated harbour was, after all, a myth.

It was a most uninteresting ride along this coast, flat and for the most part barren, broken here and there by lagoons of brackish water and mangrove swamps. One night we encamped by one of these river-beds on slightly rising ground and were devoured by mosquitos; and so pestilent are these insects here that they not only attacked us, but tormented our camels to such a degree that they were constantly jumping up in the night and making such hideous. demonstrations of their discomfort that our night's rest was considerably interfered with.

When we reached Takha we found ourselves once more amongst a heap of Sabæan ruins, which had not been so much disturbed by subsequent occupants as those at the capital; but at the same time they were not nearly so fine, and the columns mostly undecorated.

The Wali of Takha received us well, and placed his house at our disposal; but it was so dirty we elected to pitch our tents, and

encamped some little distance from the village. On the following morning the Wali sent us with a guide to inspect some ruins round the neighbouring headland, and when we reached the other side of this we saw, to our amazement, before us a long sheet of water, stretching nearly two miles inland, broken by many little creeks, and in some parts fully half a mile wide. This sheet of water had been silted up at its mouth by a sandbank, over which at high tide only the sea could make its way, and the same belt of sand separated from it a fortified rock, which must once have been an island protecting the double entrance to what once must have been an excellent harbour, and which could be again restored to its former condition by an outlay of very little capital and labour.

Surely there can be no doubt that this is the harbour which was anciently used by the merchants who came to this coast for frankincense. It would be absolutely secure at all seasons of the year, and it is just twenty parasangs from the ruins of the ancient capitaljust where it ought to be, in fact; and probably the Arabs called it Merbat, a name which has been retained in the modern village on the sheltering headland, and where we landed when we first reached Dhofar. As for the name Moscha-given in the Periplus—it is like Mocha, a name given to several bays on the Arabian coast, and we think we know why Ptolemy called it Abyssapolis, as I will presently explain. We ascended the rock at the entrance, took a photograph of the sheet of water, and felt that we had at last succeeded in reconstructing the geography of this interesting bit of country.

I hear that the Egyptologists are in search of a harbour to which the expedition to the land of Punt was made under the enterprising Queen Hatasou. They imagine that this coast of Arabia was the destination of this expedition, and I herewith call their attention to this spot, for I know of none other more likely on the barren, harbourless coast between Aden and Muscat. If we take the illustration of this expedition given in the temple of Deir al Bahari, we have to begin with the frankincense trees, the long, straight line of water running inland, the cattle and the birds; and the huts which the Bedouins build on tall poles, approached by ladders, from which they can inspect the produce of their land and drive off marauders, look exactly like those thereon depicted. All that we want are the apes, which certainly do not now exist in the Gara mountains, but it is just the spot where one would expect to find them; and in a district where the human race has been reduced to the smallest point, there is no reason why the kindred race of apes should not have disappeared altogether.

Leaving the harbour behind us, we again approached the mountains, and after journeying inland for about eight miles we found the valley leading down from the mountains choked up by a most remarkable abyss, formed by the calcareous deposit of ages from a

series of streams which precipitate themselves over the stupendous wall in feathery waterfalls. The abyss is perfectly sheer, and hung in fantastic confusion with stalactites. At its centre it is 550 feet high, and its greatest length is three-quarters of a mile. It is quite one of the most magnificent natural phenomena I have ever seen, and suggestive of comparison with the calcareous deposits in New Zealand and Yellowstone Park, and to those who visited this harbour in ancient days it must have been a familiar object; so no wonder that when they went home and talked about it, the town near it was called the City of the Abyss, and Ptolemy, as was his wont, gave the spot a Greek appellative, just as he called the capital the Oracle of Artemis.

The three days we spent in exploring the neighbourhood of this abyss were the brightest and pleasantest of all during our last winter's expeditions. Our camp was pitched under shady trees about half a mile from the foot of the abyss, whither we could wander and repose under the shade of enormous plantains which grew around the watercourse, and listen to the splashing of the stream as it was precipitated over the rock to irrigate the ground below, where the Bedouins had nice little gardens in which the vegetation was profuse. One day we spent in photography and sketching and wandering about the foot of the wall, and another day, starting early in the morning, with one camel to carry our things, we set off to climb the hill by a tortuous path under shady trees which conducted us along the side of the abyss, and lovely glimpses of which we got through the branches.

On reaching the summit we found ourselves on an extensive and well-timbered flat meadow, along which we walked for a mile or so, and found it covered with cattle belonging to the Bedouins grazing on its rich pasturage. At length we came to two lovely narrow lakes, joined together by a meandering stream-delicious spots to look upon, with well-wooded hills on either side, and a wealth of timber in every direction. We lunched and took our midday siesta under a wide-spreading sycamore by the stream, after walking up alongside the lakes for nearly two miles. Fat milch-cows, not unlike our own, were feeding by the rushing stream; birds of all descriptions filled the branches of the trees, water-hens and herons were in abundance on the lake, bulrushes and water-weeds grew in it. This would be an ideal little spot in any country, but in Arabia it was a marvel.

This wide-spreading meadow can be watered at will by damming up the streams which lead the water from the lake to the abyss, and in a large cave near the edge of the precipice dwells a family of pastoral Bedouins who own this happy valley, and before leaving the higher level we went to the edge, and peeped over into the hollow below, where, far beneath us, was our camping-ground among the

trees, and in the sun's rays the waterfall over the white cliff gave out beautiful rainbows.

The natives call the abyss and the lakes above it Derbat, and the stream which feeds the lake has its source up in the limestone mountains about two days' journey from them; and here it is that the annual fair of Derbat is held, and every one who can comes to make merry by the side of the lake. The Bedouins are exceedingly proud of it, and, in the absence of much water in their country, they naturally look upon it with almost superstitious awe and veneration. Perhaps in Scotland one might be more inclined to call them mountain-tarns, for neither of them is more than a mile in extent, and in parts very narrow, yet they are deep, and, as the people at Al Hafa proudly told us, you could float thereon any steamer you liked ; but their existence in a country like Arabia is, after all, their chief cause for renown.

If ever this tract of country comes into the hands of a civilised nation, it will be capable of great and useful development. Supposing the harbour restored to receive ships of moderate size, the Gara hills, rich in grass and vegetation, with an ample supply of water and regular rains, and, furthermore, with a most delicious and healthgiving air, might be of inestimable value as a granary and a health resort for the inhabitants of the burnt-up centres of Arabian commerce, Aden and Muscat. It is, as I have said, about half way between them, and it is the only fertile stretch of coast-line along that arid frontage of the Arabian Peninsula on to the Indian Ocean.

J. THEODORE BENT.

A MEDICAL VIEW OF THE MIRACLES

AT LOURDES

A THOUGHTFUL physician in want of a new sensation should pay a visit to Lourdes: it will afford him more food for reflection than a dozen courses of clinical lectures or a series of visits to the wards of all the great hospitals of Paris, London, or Vienna. He will, among many other useful things, infallibly learn how little he knows, after all, about those patients whose pulses he feels, whose temperatures he takes, and whose tongues he inspects in his daily work. He will discover, as he may long ago have suspected, that a man, and still more a woman, is a great deal more than the physiologist has told him; and that the psychologist has but lifted a corner of the veil which shrouds the mystery of the human organisation. If he be so vain or ignorant as to imagine that he can explain the processes by which his cures have been wrought or his failures rebuked his skill, a visit to Lourdes will do more to teach him the true value of even the highest medical knowledge than he will learn from books or observation at home. Says M. Zola in his Lourdes, which all the world has read lately: Certes, il est des maladies que l'on connaît admirablement, jusque dans les plus petites phases de leur évolution; il est des remèdes dont on a étudié les effets avec le soin le plus scrupuleux ; mais ce qu'on ne sait pas, ce qu'on ne peut savoir, c'est la relation du remède au malade, car autant de malades, autant de cas, et chaque fois l'expérience recommence.'

Moved by curiosity which impelled me to see who are the patients and what their diseases cured at the world-famous Grotto near the Pyrenean town where Bernadette Soubrions saw the heavenly vision, I found myself at Lourdes in the month of August last year on the eve of the festival of the Assumption. Endeavouring to preserve an attitude of reverent scepticism, and bearing in mind that there never was a period in the history of the healing art when medicine was dissociated from miracles, I mingled with the thousands of pilgrims who sought the virtues of the sacred fountain at the rock of Masabielle. It is difficult to remain strictly philosophical, impossible to be coarsely sceptical in that strange assembly. Hard indeed would be the heart of any medical man which could remain unmoved by the sights which met my eyes that day. At no other spot in the wide

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