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

724 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
Museum in Vienna, and which were recently published 1 by
D. H. Muller.
To the same period belongs Baron Eduard Nolde's 2 journey,
of which he wrote a charming description/ from Damascus
to the North Arabian Jof, to Hayil, then to the
camp of Ibn Rashid, Emir of Shammar, at that time halfway
between Shaqra and Riyadh, and finally from there to
Baghdad (January to March, 1893).
No less interesting is the tour of Leo Hirsch, of Berlin,
to Hadhramot 4 (January to August, 1893), he being the
first European to reach the present capital Shibam and even
Yerim. Not even A. von Wrede had reached these two
places.
But no one as yet has succeeded in visiting Shabwa
(Sabota of the classic writers), the ancient capital of the
kingdom of Hadhramot and so rich in inscriptions.
While Hirsch's visit to Mahraland, remarkable for its
dialect, was limited to a short stay at the two coast towns of
Sehut and Gishin (Keshin), in the beginning of the year
1895 the Frankincense Country proper, or the district of
Tzafar, lving east of these places and west of Mirbat, was
visited by the late lamented explorer J.
Theodore Bent
( + 1897) and his wife, who was his constant companion. 5
1
Sudarabische Alterthumer im Kunst-historischen Ho/museum, mit 14
Lichtdruchafeln, Vienna, 1899. Compare, also, Hommel, Aufsdtze und
Abhandlungen, ii. pp. 129-206 (with a glossary of those texts, pp. 168,
seqq.).
-
Died bv his own hand, March 1 1, 1895, in London.
3
See his Reise nach Innerarabien, Kurdistan und Armenien, l8p2 ( error
for 1893 ), Braunschweig, 1895. Special attention is called to the two instructive
chapters on the camel and the horse.
4
Reisen in Sudarabien, Mahraland und Hadhramut, Leiden, 1897.
Concerning the defects in the otherwise meritorious narrative of Hirsch see
the competent opinion of Eduard Glaser in Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1897,
no. 3, pp. 37-39-
5
He published an account of his visit — " Exploration of the Frankincense
Country, Southern Arabia " — with photographic illustrations, in
the " Geo-