It Seems A Highly Probable Etymology." See Note, P. 402. - H.C.]

NOTE 5.

- At Hasik, east of Dhafar, Ibn Batuta says: "The people here live on a kind of fish called Al-Lukham, resembling that called the sea-dog. They cut it in slices and strips, dry it in the sun, salt it, and feed on it. Their houses are made with fish-bones, and their roofs with camel-hides" (II. 214).

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF DUFAR.

Dufar is a great and noble and fine city, and lies 500 miles to the north-west of Esher. The people are Saracens, and have a Count for their chief, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden; for this city still belongs to the Province of Aden. It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby. This city has under it many other towns and villages.[NOTE 1]

Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it flows from the tree without any notch; this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1. - Dufar. The name [Arabic] is variously pronounced Dhafar, DHOFAR, Zhafar, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile plain district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Shehr, though according to Haines there is now no town of the name. Ibn Batuta speaks of the city as situated at the extremity of Yemen ("the province of Aden"), and mentions its horse-trade, its unequalled dirt, stench, and flies, and consequent diseases. (See II. 196 seqq.) What he says of the desert character of the tract round the town is not in accordance with modern descriptions of the plain of Dhafar, nor seemingly with his own statements of the splendid bananas grown there, as well as other Indian products, betel, and coco-nut. His account of the Sultan of Zhafar in his time corroborates Polo's, for he says that prince was the son of a cousin of the King of Yemen, who had been chief of Zhafar under the suzerainete of that King and tributary to him. The only ruins mentioned by Haines are extensive ones near Haffer, towards the western part of the plain; and this Fresnel considers to be the site of the former city. A lake which exists here, on the landward side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a gulf, and formed the port, "the very good haven," of which our author speaks.

A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbat, which is at the eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of Dhafar in the Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that the city itself was in the eastern part of the plain. The matter evidently needs further examination.

This Dhafar, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to be the Sephar of Genesis (x. 30). But it does not seem to be the Sapphara metropolis of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of the same name: "Dhafar was the name of two cities of Yemen, one of which was near Sana'a ... it was the residence of the Himyarite Princes; some authors allege that it is identical with Sana'a" (Marasid-al-Ittila', in Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. p. 124).

Dofar is noted by Camoens for its fragrant incense. It was believed in Malabar that the famous King Cheram Perumal, converted to Islam, died on the pilgrimage to Mecca and was buried at Dhafar, where his tomb was much visited for its sanctity.

The place is mentioned (Tsafarh) in the Ming Annals of China as a Mahomedan country lying, with a fair wind, 10 days N.W. of Kuli (supra, p. 440). Ostriches were found there, and among the products are named drugs which Dr. Bretschneider renders as Olibanum, Storax liquida, Myrrh, Catechu(?), Dragon's blood. This state sent an embassy (so-called) to China in 1422. (Haines in J.R.G.S. XV. 116 seqq.; Playfair's Yemen, p. 31; Fresnel in J. As. ser. 3, tom. V. 517 seqq.; Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, p. 56; Bretschneider, p. 19.)

NOTE 2. - Frankincense presents a remarkable example of the obscurity which so often attends the history of familiar drugs; though in this case the darkness has been, like that of which Marco spoke in his account of the Caraonas (vol. i. p. 98), much of man's making.

This coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient [Greek: chora libanophoros] or [Greek: libanotophoros], indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other classical writers; i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews Lebonah, by the Brahmans apparently Kundu and Kunduru, by the Arabs Luban and Kundur, by the Greeks Libanos, by the Romans Thus, in mediaeval Latin Olibanum, and in English Frankincense, i.e. I apprehend, "Genuine incense," or "Incense Proper."[1] It is still produced in this region and exported from it: but the larger part of that which enters the markets of the world is exported from the roadsteads of the opposite Sumali coast. In ancient times also an important quantity was exported from the latter coast, immediately west of Cape Gardafui (Aromatum Prom.), and in the Periplus this frankincense is distinguished by the title Peratic, "from over the water."

The Marasid-al-Ittila', a Geog. Dictionary of the end of the 14th century, in a passage of which we have quoted the commencement in the preceding note, proceeds as follows: "The other Dhafar, which still subsists, is on the shore of the Indian Sea, distant 5 parasangs from Merbath in the province of Shehr.

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