Other reasons are adduced by scholars for fixing the date of the Lycian language not before the fifth century B.C., or to the age of Herodotus. This historian was from the adjoining province of Caria; and as might be expected, gives accounts of the Lycians before his time, but does not say that they spoke a language different from his own, or from that of the entire region,—a fact that he would not have overlooked had such been the case.
It is believed that Cyrus, when he subjected this country, brought in some people from his Persian dominions, who afterwards became the dominant party, and introduced their language.[62]
It is surprising to find the names of these Lycian cities so well preserved when the descendants of its ancient inhabitants have been so entirely swept out of the country, and replaced by a people differing in manners, in religion, and having no interest connected with the locality to induce them to respect the relics or names, and keep alive the memory, of the former possessors of the soil.
Travels in Lycia, Milytas and the Cibyrates, in company with the late Rev. E.T. Daniel, by Lieut. Spratt, R.N., and Prof. E. Forbes. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1847.
A Journal written during an excursion in Asia Minor, by Charles Fellows. royal 8vo. London, 1839.
An account of Discoveries in Lycia, in 1840. By Charles Fellows, royal 8vo.
An Essay on the Lycian language. By Daniel Sharpe. (In the appendix to Fellows' Journal.)
ARABIA.
If we now turn to the discoveries that have recently been made in the southern part of Arabia, we find much in them worthy of attention. This country, called in the Scriptures Hazarmaveth, by the natives Hadramaut, and by the classical writers of antiquity, Arabia Felix, is celebrated as being the kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon, as well as for the gold, gems, frankincense and other precious productions, which it furnished in ancient times. It is represented by the Greek and Roman writers as a populous country, with many extensive cities, abounding in temples and palaces; though the palpable fables with which these accounts are intermingled, show that at least they had no personal knowledge of the facts, but retailed them at second hand.
After Europe had awoke from the intellectual slumber of the dark ages, the Arabs were long regarded only as objects of religious and political abhorrence. The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope, at the close of the fifteenth century, by diverting the channel of Indo-European traffic from the Red Sea, left the countries bordering upon it in such a state of solitude, that when better feelings began to prevail, there was no means of obtaining any direct information respecting them.
In 1650, the illustrious Pococke, by the publication of his Specimens of Ancient Arabian History, extracted from native authors, created a curiosity respecting Southern Arabia and its ancient inhabitants, which successive collections of a similar nature, down to our own times, have served rather to increase than to gratify. The researches of Niebuhr, Seetzen, and Burckhardt, in the latter part of the last, and the beginning of the present century, made us somewhat acquainted with the western extremity of this country, along the shores of the Red Sea; but before the investigations of which we are about to speak, its southern coast had never been accurately explored, and the great body of the interior, with its once famous capital, Mareb, remained, as it ever had been, completely unknown to and unvisited by the natives of Europe.
The hordes of pirates, which until twenty years ago infested the Persian Gulf, caused the government of British India to order a complete survey of its islands and both its shores, with the view of laying bare their haunts, and putting an end to their depredations. In 1829, after this service had been performed, the project then recently set on foot of establishing a steam communication between England and Bombay, caused orders to be issued for a similar examination of the Red Sea.
The attention of the officers composing the expedition, was not restricted to the technical duties in which they were chiefly engaged. It was well known that information of every kind would be prized by the government which they served; and this, together with the monotony of life on board ship on the one hand, and the novelty of the scenes by which they were surrounded on the other, seems to have created among them a spirit of emulation that led to the most interesting discoveries respecting both the geography and the antiquities of the adjacent countries.