enough to work the gold-dust of their river, although evidently aware of its existence. Their neighbours being more favoured by the nature of their gold deposit are able to use the metal in the way in which we may with safety conclude that mankind everywhere first employed it. Accustomed to use ornaments of shells made into rude beads, they had no difficulty in adapting for like use the small lumps of native gold. They readily pierced the soft metal and making the nuggets into beads used them to form their necklets and armlets. But although this people had made some progress in the working of gold, they were incapable of working copper and silver. We shall have to return to this passage hereafter. Let us now hear Diodorus in reference to the same region.
He speaks of it in two separate places in his Collections, first in his Second Book, when giving a brief general statement of Arabia and its natural products, and again in the Third Book, when he is giving a more detailed account of the tribes who dwelt along the shores of the Red Sea or, as he called it, the Arabian Gulf.
The first passage runs thus (he has just been describing certain quarries): "There are mines in Arabia likewise of the gold that is termed 'fireless.' It is not refined down from gold-dust as in other countries, but it is obtained straightway on being dug up in size like unto chestnuts, and so fiery in colour that the most precious stones when set in it by the craftsmen make the most lovely of ornaments. And so great abundance of all sorts of cattle is found in the country that many tribes having chosen a pastoral life are able to get a comfortable subsistence, and being completely furnished with the plenteousness derived from their herds, they even have no need of corn in addition[1]." In his second reference, after describing the hill district, where lay the Mount Chabinus, densely clad with forests of all kinds of trees he says: "The land which comes next to the mountain region those Arabs called Debae inhabit. Now these people are camel-keepers and make use of this animal for all the most important affairs in life. For from them, they fight against their enemies and conveying their
- ↑ Diodorus Sic. II. 50. 1 sq.
