Note 82 — LETTER XXXIII.

These hot springs do not seem to have been originally named Hammâm Faraûn, of Pharaoh, but Faran, from Pharan. For Edrisi names those places on the coast Faran Ahrun, and Istachri Taran, which no doubt ought to be called Faran. (See Ritter, Asien, vol. viii., p. 170, &c.) Macrizi also calls the same spot Birket Faran. (Ritter, Sinai-halbins, p. 64.) The harbour district of Pharan was probably called after the town itself, though distant, and the tradition of Pharaoh’s destruction, so inapplicable to this spot, was perhaps only connected with the alteration of the name of Faran into Faraûn. It remains a striking fact that the Arabian chroniclers, among whom Macrizi himself visited the spot, speak of the town of Faran as of a town on the coast.