camels. The caravans at that time used to cross Arabia in all directions,
and the men who drove these camel-trains grew wealthy, as railroad
magnates do to-day. We read about this early traffic on these highways of
the desert in the Old Testament as well as in the old Greek histories. The
province of Yemen was celebrated for its wealth and civilisation as early
as the time of Solomon. It was then called Sheba and the old capital was
called Marib, a little northeast of the present city of Sanaa. There are
still many extensive ruins and inscriptions which testify to the height of
their civilisation. We read of one of the queens of Sheba (the Arabs say
she was named _Bilkis_) who came to prove Solomon with hard questions. She
came with a large caravan of camels bearing spices and gold in abundance;
her present to Solomon consisted of "an hundred and twenty talents of
gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones." Gold is no
longer found in Arabia but it was undoubtedly once very plentiful there.
All the old writers speak of Arabia as a-gold country. One of the Greek
geographers speaks of a stream in which large nuggets of gold were found.
Some people think Ophir was in Arabia. However that may be, the traveller
Burton explored the northwestern part of the peninsula and found old mines
and even traces of gold dust. If Job lived in the land of Midian we can
well understand how he could describe mining operations so well as he does
in the twenty-eighth chapter of his book.

[Illustration: BRANCH OF INCENSE TREE.]

Frankincense and myrrh were also carried across Arabia by the caravans,
and both of these precious gums came from Arabia itself and are still
found there. One of the oldest articles of commerce was incense. The gum
was used in sacrifices and in all the heathen temple worship as well as by
the Jews in their worship. One thousand talents' weight of frankincense
was brought every year to Darius, the Persian king, as tribute from