allowed to escape by dykes, or openings, at different levels, so that irrigation could be maintained, no matter at what level the water of the tank might stand. It is supposed to have been burst under exceptional pressure about A.D. 100.
The system of storing water in tanks, and the evidences of its antiquity, are abuudant throughout South Arabia, and these evi- dences may supply a key to the mystery of those strange construc- tions in Southern Baluchistan and Makrán which for ages have presented an interesting problem to investigators. Throughout Makrán, but perhaps more especially in the districts of Panjgur and Kolwah, there are relics of walls of enormous thickness, and sometimes of considerable height, which are only known to the local inhabitants as Ghorbasta, or Ghabrbasta, the name indicating merely that they were built by a race of sun- or fire-worshippers. No modern Baluchi acknowledges any connexion with them. They possess, in fact, no history—no tradition even; but the peculiarities of their construction distinctly point to the same race of people for their origin as those who terraced the hillsides and revetted the fields round about them with similar masonry.
Those "Asiatic Ethiopians" whom Herodotus places in Southern Baluchistan 500 years B.C. have disappeared, and the Arab influ- ences which now pervade the country from end to end are of later date and different origin; but there can be little doubt that the Sabæan or Himyaritic races of dusky Arabs who fenced round their gold mines in Africa with strange fortifications and built up the vast protective works for water storage in South Arabia, are responsible for many works designed on the same principles and of similar construction on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf. (See BALUCHISTAN.)
A certain amount of fresh light has been thrown on the ancient connexion between Ethiopia and South Arabia by the researches of Glaser. This connexion was evidently so close as to approach to the affinity of blood relationship. Egyptians, Syrians, and Greeks traded with Arabia for frankincense for more centuries before our era than we can clearly count. "In the most primitive times," says McCrindle, "the merchants of Arabia traded to Gaza and Egypt, and the producers of incense in Africa followed their example." What the Greeks called Ethiopia the Egyptians called Punt (or Pwent), Habash, and Kash. Punt certainly referred to both sides of the Red Sea, but the name never occurs in Himyaritic inscriptions. Habash (or Habashat) does occur, and, according to Glaser, the word means "collector"—i.e., collector of incense, and applied equally to Africans and Arabians-to Abys- sinia and Somaliland as well as to Hadramut.
The condensed history of the Arab nation from the very earliest ages, which is to be found in the articles "Arabia" Arab history. and "Yemen" of the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, sufficiently illustrates the expansion of Arab trade and Arab colonization in those days when Ethiopia and Southern Arabia seem to have been united in the closest bonds of commercial affinity, and gold and frankincense and myrrh formed the chief articles of commercial quest. But whilst the spread of Arab (or Himyaritic) influence to the west and north can be more than faintly estimated from classical records and ancient inscriptions, there is very little said about eastern fields of enterprise, and it is only since the waste places of Baluchistan and the shores of Makrán have been brought under the close scrutiny of the Indian surveyor that evidence has been collected which proves that Arab enterprise, if not Arab empire, included a vast area of Asia to the east of the Persian Gulf, just as it included a vast area of Africa to the west of the Red Sea.
Herodotus refers to Asiatic Ethiopians, but makes no confusion
between Africa and Asia as some modern historians suggest. The
historians of Alexander's campaigns throw a casual light on the
existence of a trade in incense which could only have been carried
on by Arab merchants. In enumerating the inhabitants of
Southern Gedrosia (Baluchistan), Ptolemy mentions Arbitæ,
Parsidæ (or Parsiræ), and Rhamnæ, whose names are too suggestive
of the Arab, Persian (or Tajak), and Dravidian ethnic occupation
of the sanie nature that now exists to be altogether accidental.
But it is to that invaluable anonymous record, the Periplus, and
to the discovery of many relics of the ancient trade in Egyptian
or Phoenician glass (the Υαλος ἁργή of the Periplus), which are to
be found in abundance on the coast of Makrán, that we are chiefly
indebted for the identification of many of the trading ports of the
Arabian Sea which would otherwise be subjects of conjecture.
Long before the rise of Mahommed, Semitic colonies had planted themselves in Asia to the east of the Persian Gulf, and from the days (early in the 1st century of our era) that the pilot Hippalus worked out the problem of a regular passage between India to Africa by making use of the monsoon winds, Arabia competed with Egypt on the commercial highways of the ocean. The Christian Topography of the Universe, by Cosmas Indicopleustes (about A.D. 535-547), continues the story of the Periplus about 400 years later, and gives an account of the trade with Malabar and the Eastern Archipelago, which is taken up again by Arab geographers of the next seven centuries. A trading colony of Sabean Arabs existed at Canton at the beginning of the 7th century. Arabian science influenced Chinese astrology, meteoro- logy, and astronomical instruments, according to a learned Chinese authority. Colonies of Arabs and Jews settled early in our era on the southern coasts of Bombay, where their descendants are to be found to this day. When Mahommedan Arabs resorted thither in after ages they met with a friendly reception similar to that which their Sabæan predecessors had obtained, and they shared the honoured name of Moplah together with Christians.
With the rise of Mahommed and the universal acceptance of the creed of Islam, the second chapter in the history of Arabia opens. Hitherto Semitic instincts for trade and barter had been the moving spirit of an extension of Semitic, if not of Arab influence over the whole of the then known world. It was the enormous acquisition of geographical knowledge, supplemented by commercial wealth—the accumulation of centuries of trade, initiated no doubt by the southern or Himyaritic races, but gradually shared by the northern or more distinctly Semitic tribes—that paved the way for the unprecedented success of Arab arms in the cause of "Jehad " or holy war. The chief military movements directed against Europe, Northern Africa, and Persia, under the influence of Islamitic religious fervour, and the almost unbroken success which attended these movements, are already briefly recorded. this record no note is made of that most remarkable episode in Arab history which culminated in the conquest of Sind, stamped out Greek influences on the Indus, and proved to be the one occasion in history when India was successfully invaded from the west. Very early in the Mahommedan era, if not before it, Arabs from the north—i.e., from Syria-had overrun and occupied Makrán and Sistán. Several attempts to invade India were made before the successful expedition of Mahommed Kasim in A.D. 710. Ac- cording to latest history (Major Jarrett's translation of Az Siynti), Makrán was subjugated in 644, and in 663 Kirmán, Sistán, and the western mountain districts of Makrán were conquered. Two attempts to capture Debal, the port of Sind, were unsuccess- ful. In the Caliphate of Moawiah, Abdulla bin Suwad invaded Kaikanan (i.e., the Kalat highlands) and attempted to reach Sind that way; but the attempt failed, and there may still be seen near Kalat the traditional graveyard of the Arabs who fell in the attempt. Frequent Arab incursions were made Indiawards, but they were all by land following the Kirmán and Makrán route from Syria. Buddhism, which prevailed all through Sind and the mountainous districts to the west, had given place to Brahmanism about the middle of the 7th century, when the Brahman Chach usurped the throne of Sind. But it still held its own in Bela, between Sind and Makrán, and in the border province of Gandava (sometimes called Kandahar by Arab geographers), which was known as Budh at the beginning of the 8th century. There were great Arab cities and a flourishing trade between east and west before the Arabs conquered Sind. Kandabel (Gandava), Armail (Las Bela), Kanazbuu (Panjgur), were certainly in existence before Sind was conquered, and it is probable that many of the other towns and cities of Makrán which subsequently rose to fame and opulence, when the great trade route to India passed through that country, were already founded, if not already famous.
The conquest of Sind originated in the efforts of Walid (sixth Caliph) to punish the Karak and Med pirates who had plundered The Sind Invasion vessels from Ceylou laden with presents for the Caliphate. These Karaks (who have left their name at Karachi) were of Scythic origin, and their ethnic affinities may be traced on the Euxine to this day. They have disappeared from the coasts of Baluchistan. The Meds are still there, a humble and starved race of fisher folk now, but once a powerful tribe in the Punjab and on the Indus. They, too, hailed originally from the north. Thus the expedition finally became partly military and partly naval; and it appears to be the first Arab naval expedition in the eastern seas, although they were about the same time occupied in the conquest of Spain from the shores of Africa. It was not until two unsuccessful attempts had been made to reach Debal that Hajjaj, the governor of lrak and Makrán, appointed his relative, the boy-general Mahommed Kasim, to the command of a fresh force, with the conquest of Sind in O immediate view, but with the ulterior object of reaching China from the Indus. At the same time another general, Kutaiba, left B the Oxus for the same goal, and the governorship of China was promised to whichever of the two reached that country first.
With a force of 6000 picked cavalry, 6000 camel-men, and 3000
baggage animals, Mahommed Kasim traversed Makrán, sending
