AQUITANIA 219 ABABIA road at the Cistercian abbey of Fossa- Nuova, March 7, 1274. All Europe mourned his loss. Miracles were said to be wrought at his funeral. Universities, religious orders, and princes contended for the honor of possessing his body. It was finally bestowed by the Pope on Toulouse, where it was received by 150,- 000 persons, headed by Louis, Duke of Anjou. Aquinas was canonized by John XXII, in 1323, and proclaimed a "Doctor of the Church," by Pius V. in 1567. The first complete edition of Aquinas' works was published in 17 volumes folio, at Rome, in 1570. AQUITANIA (ak-we-ta'ne-a) later AQUITAINE, a Roman province in Gaul, which comprehended the countries on the coast from the Garonne to the Pyrenees, and from the sea to Toulouse. It was brought into connection with England by the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor, daughter of the last Duke of Aquitaine. AHABAH, a deep, rocky valley or de- pression in northwestern Arabia, be- tween the Dead Sea and Gulf of Akabah, a sort of continuation of the Jordan Valley. ARABESQUE (ar-a-besk'), a style of ornamentation in which are represented men, animals (the latter consisting of mythic as well as actual forms); plants, with leaves, flowers, and fruit; mathe- matical figures, etc.; the whole put to- gether in a whimsical way, so that, for instance, the animals not merely rest upon the plants, but grow out of them like blossoms. There are three kinds of arabesque: (1) (and oldest), that of the Romans, without the animals. They occur in the mural paintings at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other places. (2) That of the Arabs, also without the animals. This is well seen in the Alham- bra. (3) The Christian arabesque, with the figures introduced. It appears in illuminated medieval manuscripts and elsewhere. ARABIA, a vast peninsula in the S. W. of Asia, bounded on the N. by the great Syro-Babylonian plain, N. E. by the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, S. E. by the Indian Ocean, and S. W. by the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez. Its length from N. W. to S. E. is about 1,800 miles, its mean breadth about 600 miles, its area rather oyer 1,000,000 square miles, its popula- tion may be roughly estimated at 10,- 000,000. Topography. — It exhibits a central table-land, surrounded by a series of des- erts, with numerous scattered oases, while around this is a line of mountains parallel to and approaching the coasts, and with a narrow rim of low grounds (tehama) between them and the sea. Rivers proper, there are none. By the ancients the whole peninsula was broadly divided into three great sections — Arabia Petraa (containing the city of Petra), Deserta (desert), and Felix (happy). The first and last of these answer roughly to the modern divisions of the region of Sinai in the N. W., and Yemen in the S. W., while the name Deserta was vaguely given to the rest of the country. Political Divisions.— The principal di- visions are Madian in the N. W.; S. of this, Hejaz, Assir and Yemen, all on the Red Sea, the last named occupying the southwestern part of the peninsula; Hadramaut, on the S. coast; Oman oc- cupying the S. E. angle; El-Hasa and Koveit on the Persian Gulf; El-Hamad (desert of Syria), Nefud and Jebel Shammar in the N.; Nejd, the Central Highlands, which occupies a great part of the interior of the country, while S. of it is the great unexplored Dahkna or Sandy Desert. Previous to the World War Madian belonged to Egypt, the Hejaz, Yemen, Bahr-el-Hasa, Koveit, etc., were more or less under the suze- rainty of Turkey. The rest of the coun- try was ruled by independent chiefs — ■- sheikhs, emirs, and imams — while the title of Sultan has been assumed by the chief of the Wahabis in Nejd, the sover- eign of Oman (who has a subvention from the Indian Government), and some petty princes in the S. of the peninsula. The chief towns are Mecca, the birth- place of Mohammed; Medina, the place to which he fled from Mecca (a. d. 622) and where he is buried; Mocha, a sea- port celebrated for its coffee; Aden, on the S. W. coast, a strongly fortified gar- rison belonging to Britain; Sana, the capital of Yemen; and Muscat, the capi- tal of Oman, a busy port with a safe anchorage. Clitnaie and Productions. — The climate of Arabia, in general, is marked by ex- treme heat and dryness. Aridity and bareness characterize both high and low grounds, and the date palm is often the only representative of vegetable exist- ence. There are districts which, in the course of the year, are hardly refreshed by a single shower of rain. Forests there are few or none. The date palm furnishes the staple article of food; the cereals are wheat, barley, maize, and mil- let; various sorts of fruit flourish; coffee and many aromatic plants and sub- stances, such as gum arable, benzoin, mastic, balsam, aloes, myrrh, frankin- cense, etc., are produced. There are also cultivated in different parts of the penin-
