Note 113 — BOOK III THE DAWN OF HISTORY

“The original home or centre of development of this ‘Dynastic’ Egyptian type seems to have been in southern or south-western Arabia. This region of south-western and southern Arabia, ten to fifteen thousand years ago, was probably an even better favoured province than it is at the present day, when it still bears the Roman designation of Arabia Felix—so much of the rest of this gaunt, lava-covered, sand-strewn peninsula being decidedly ‘infelix.’ It has high mountains—a certain degree of rainfall on them, and was anciently clothed in rich forests before the camels, goats, and sheep of Neolithic and Bronze Age man nibbled away much of this verdure. Above all there grew trees oozing with delicious-scented resins or gums. These, when civilization dawned on the world, became very precious and an offering of sweet savour to the civilized man’s gods, because so grateful to his own nostrils.” Africa, by Sir H. H. Johnston.