It is sufficiently evident, therefore, that, at a very early period, the productions of India were imported into Egypt.  That the Arabians were the merchants who imported them, is rendered highly probable from several circumstances.  The Ishmaelites, mentioned in the 37th chapter of Genesis, are undoubtedly the Nabathians, whose country is represented by all the geographers, historians, and poets, as the source of all the precious commodities of the east; the ancients, erroneously supposing that cinnamon, which we know to be an exclusive production of India, was the produce of Arabia, because they were supplied with it, along with other aromatics, from that country.  The proof that the Nabathians and the Ishmaelites are the same, is to be found in the evident derivation of the former name, from Nebaioth, the son of Ishmael.  The traditions of the Arabians coincide with the genealogy of the Scriptures, in regarding Joktan, the fourth son of Shem, as the origin of those trihes which occupied Sabaea and Hadraumaut, or the incense country; Ishmael as the father of the families which settled in Arabia Deserta; and Edom as the ancestor of the Idumeans, who settled in Arabia Petraea.

Eight hundred years before the Christian era, the merchandize of the Sabeans is particularly noticed by the prophet Isaiah; and even long before his time, we are informed, that there were no such spices as the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.  That Sheba is Sabaea, or Arabia Felix, we learn from Ezekiel:—­“The merchants of Sheba and Ramah, they were thy merchants:  they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold.”  Six hundred and fifty years after Isaiah bore his testimony to the commerce of Sabaea, we have the authority of Agatharcides, that the merchants of this country traded to India; that the great wealth and luxury of Sabaea were principally derived from this trade; and that, at the time when Egypt possessed the monopoly of the Indian trade, with respect to Europe, the Sabeans enjoyed a similar advantage with regard to Egypt.

Having thus established the fact, that, from the earliest period of which we have any record, the Arabians were the merchants who brought the cinnamon, &c. of India into the west, we must, in the next place, endeavour to ascertain by what means and route this commerce was carried on; and we think we can prove that the communication between Arabia and India, at a very early period, was both by sea and land.

There were many circumstances connected with Arabia and the Arabians, which would necessarily turn their thoughts to maritime affairs, and when they had once embarked in maritime commerce, would particularly direct it to India.  The sea washed three sides of the peninsula of Arabia:  the Arabians were not, like the Egyptians, prejudiced, either by their habits or their religion, against the sea.  The monsoons must have been perceived by them, from part of the sea-coast lying within their influence; and it can