[FN#1] In Oriental geography the parasang still, as in the days of Pliny, greatly varies, from 1500 to 6000 yards.  Captain Francklin, whose opinion is generally taken, makes it (in his Tour to Persia) a measure of about four miles (Preface to Ibn Haukal, by Sir Gore Ouseley). [FN#2] M.C. de Perceval (Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme), makes Amlak son of Laoud (Lud), son of Shem, or, according to others, son of Ham.  That learned writer identifies the Amalik with the Phoenicians, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, and the Hyksos.  He alludes, also, to an ancient tradition which makes them to have colonised Barbary in Africa. [FN#3] The Dabistan al-Mazahib relates a tradition that the Almighty, when addressing the angels in command, uses the Arabic tongue, but when speaking in mercy or beneficence, the Deri dialect of Persian. [FN#4] These were the giants who fought against Israel in Palestine. [FN#5] In this wild tradition we find a confirmation of the sound geographical opinion which makes Arabia “Une des pepinieres du genre humain” (M.  Jomard).  It must be remembered that the theatre of all earliest civilisation has been a fertile valley with a navigable stream, like Sind, Egypt, and Mesopotamia.  The existence of such a spot in Arabia would have altered every page of her history; she would then have become a centre, not a source, of civilisation.  Strabo’s Malothes river in Al-Yaman is therefore a myth.  As it is, the immense population of the peninsula-still thick, even in the deserts-has, from the earliest ages, been impelled by drought, famine, or desire of conquest, to emigrate into happier regions.  All history mentions two main streams which took their rise in the wilds.  The first set to the North-East, through Persia, Mekran, Baluchistan, Sind, and the Afghan Mountains, as far as Samarkand, Bokhara, and Tibet; the other, flowing towards the North-West, passed through Egypt and Barbary into Etruria, Spain, the Isles of the Mediterranean, and Southern France.  There are two minor emigrations chronicled in history, and written in the indelible characters of physiognomy and philology.  One of these set in an exiguous but perennial stream towards India, especially Malabar, where, mixing with the people of the country, the Arab merchants became the progenitors of the Moplah race.  The other was a partial emigration, also for commercial purposes, to the coast of Berberah, in Eastern Africa, where, mixing with the Galla tribes, the people of Hazramaut became the sires of the extensive Somali and Sawahil nations.  Thus we have from Arabia four different lines of emigration, tending N.E. and S.E., N.W. and S.W.  At some future time I hope to develop this curious but somewhat obscure portion of Arabian history.  It bears upon a most interesting subject, and serves to explain, by the consanguinity of races, the marvellous celerity with which the faith of Al-Islam spread from the Pillars of Hercules to the confines of China-embracing part