Note 33 — X THE PEARL ISLANDS OF THE GULF

These islands are identified by Sprenger and others with Dedan of the Scriptures, (Ezekiel xxvii. 15), and were known to the Romans by the name of Tylos. Pliny writes of the cotton-trees, “arbores vocant gossympinos fertiliore etiam Tylo minore.”—(xii. 10). Strabo describes the Phœnician temples that existed on the islands, and Ptolemy speaks of the pearl-fisheries which from time immemorial flourished along these coasts. The geographer, Juba, also tells of a battle fought off the islands between the Romans and the Arabs. Ptolemy’s ancient map shows how little was known as to the size or location of the group. Even Niebuhr’s map, which is wonderfully correct in the main, makes a great error in the position of the islands; in his day the two principal islands were called Owal and Arad, names which still linger.