Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

LURING lOTii CENTURY: ARABIA 701
Next in the order of time comes the English agent
Reinaud, who in
1799 made a tour from Qatif on the eastern
coast to Der'iya, in the interior of Yemama, then the capital
of the newly established dominion of the Wahhabites. A
very brief report of this journey, undertaken by order of the
East India Company, and which was therefore merely for
Aden
commercial purposes, was given bv Seetzen (see below) in
1805. 1 Reinaud, while fifteen days on the way to Der'iya,
remained there only eight days. Though contributing nothing
to science through this journey, he was the first to
visit that interesting region, and was also the only European
who saw the kingdom of the Wahhabites at its height, and
(whence sazvahil, "inhabitants of the coast," the name of the Suaheli in
Northeast Africa), but rather from the old word for "frankincense,"
Hebrew shekheleth ( Exod. 30 34), Ethiopic sekhin. Probably also Shihr
:
(Shehr'), the name for the coast of the "Frankincense Country," is but a
variant of this word for " frankincense."
1
In Zach's Monatliche Correspondent.