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desert lies between the Arabian divisions and another in the
midst of the non-Arabian. They are so important and so much
intersected with paths of travel, that we have thought it absolutely
necessary to treat of them separately, and describe them
minutely.
Of the seas and rivers we have sufficiently treated in a separate
chapter, on account of the importance and comparative obscurity
of this subject.
THE SEAS AND RIVERS.
In the whole extent of Islam, we have certainly seen not more
than two seas. One of these issues from the direction of the
South-east¹ and extends between China ² and the country of the
Ethiopians. On entering the territory of Islam, it passes round
the Peninsula of the Arabs as shown in the map of that country.
It has many gulfs and several arms ; but the accounts given of
it differ very much and those who have made charts of it have
represented it in a variety of forms. Some of them have taken
it to be in the form of a semicircular tailusan, at one end of
which is China, and at the other end the country of the Abyssinians,
with arms stretching to al-Qulzum and 'Abbadan. Abu Zaid,
1 The word used in the text to designate the south-east is
the points in the heavens whore the sun rises in winter. " The Arabs have
different ways of marking the four Cardinal points. Two of these are indicated
by nature herself j they are the mashriq or East, the direction of the
heavens where the sun rises, and the maghrih or West, where it sets. But
the sun does not follow a direct line with reference to the equator: sometimes
it is to the south of the equinoctial line and sometimes to the north. The
limits of the course of the sun are, on the north, the tropic of Cancer, and
on the south, the tropic of Capricorn, a space of about forty-seven degrees.
At the winter solstice, the sun is under the tropic of Capricorn, and at the
summer solstice, under the tropic of Cancer. The Arabs to designate the
south-east, say sometimes ' mashriqu-sh-Shita' or the ' Orient of winter,' and
to indicate the north-east mashriqu-s-Saif or the ' Orient of summer,' so also
to mark the north-west they make use of the words 'maghrtbu-s-Saif or the
' Occident of summer,' and to express the south-west, ' maghribu-sh-Shita' or
the ' Occident of winter .' " The north and south are determined by the east
and west. Reinand's Introduction, p. 192.
2 China was supposed to touch the equator on the south-east, where the
Indian Ocean is made to begin See Reinaud's Geo. d'Aboulf., Vol. I, p. 26
and n 1.