in Mecca, 1864.  By a series of ingenious inferences from Bible texts (1 Sam. xxx, 1 Chron. iv. 24-43, &c.) he essays to establish that the tribe of Simeon, after David had dispersed the Amalekites who had already been weakened by Saul, entered Arabia and settled all along in the land of the Minaeans and at Mecca, where they established the worship at the Kaaba and introduced practices which have not been altogether abandoned up to the present day.  Dr. Dozy further contends that after Hezekiah’s reign numerous Jewish exiles came to Arabia.

Hommel, in two articles in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedia, under “Bedouins” and “Anzah,” gives full particulars respecting the Anizeh, otherwise Anaessi, tribe—­that they were in the habit of joining the Wahabees and other Bedouin tribes in attacking caravans and levying blackmail.  The Turkish Pasha at Damascus had to pay annually passage-money to ensure the safety of the pilgrims to Mecca.  On one occasion two of the Bedouin sheiks were decoyed by the Turks and killed; but the Anaessi, aided by other tribes to the number of 80,000, took ample revenge by pillaging the Mecca caravan on its return.  They seized a quantity of pearls, and the women were said to have attempted boiling them with the rice.  Seetzen (Journey through Syria, &c., I, ch. i, p. 356) says, “In Kheibar are no Jews now, only Anaessi.”  Layard and other modern writers often refer to the Anizeh Bedouins.  Travellers go in dread of them in the Syrian desert and all along the Euphrates.  Doughty mentions that they, more than any other tribe, resemble the Jews both in appearance and disposition.

Ritter (Geographie, vol.  XII), in quoting Niebuhr, makes mention of the widespread Anizeh tribe of Bedouins who were anciently known to be Jews.  He further states that the Jews of Damascus and Aleppo shun them as they are non-observant Jews, considered by some to be Karaites.  Does all this give ground for any presumption that they are or were crypto-Jews, the descendants of the former Kheibar Jews, possibly also of those whom Omar allowed to settle at Kufa?

This lengthy note may be closed fitly with the following mysterious remark in Doughty’s usual quaint style (vol.  I, p. 127), in connexion with the murder of a Bagdad Jew who tried to reach Kheibar:  “But let none any more jeopardy his life for Kheibar!  I would that these leaves might save the blood of some:  and God give me this reward of my labour! for who will, he may read in them all the tale of Kheibar.”]

[Footnote 149:  It will be seen further on (p. 67) that Benjamin speaks of Aden as being in India, “which is on the mainland.”  It is well known that Abyssinia and Arabia were in the Middle Ages spoken of as “Middle India.”  It has been ascertained that in ancient times the Arabs extensively colonized the western sea-coast of the East Indies.  Cf. the article “Arabia,”