Travels In Arabia

THE Peninsula of Arabia, forming the extreme southwestern corner of Asia, is partly detached, both in a geographical and historical sense, from the remainder of the continent. Although parts of it are mentioned in the oldest historical records, and its shores were probably familiar to the earliest navigators, the greater portion of its territory has always remained almost inaccessible and unknown. The desert, lying between Syria and the Euphrates is sometimes included by geographers as belonging to Arabia, but a line drawn from the Dead Sea to the mouth of the Euphrates (almost coinciding with the parallel of 30° N.) would more nearly represent the northern boundary of the peninsula. As the most southern point of the Arabian coast reaches the latitude of 12° 40?, the greater part of the entire territory, of more than one million square miles, lies within the tropics.