Arabia, a-ra'bi-a, the most southwesterly peninsula of Asia. Speaking roughly, it is a rectangular plateau extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf. The most commonly accepted northern limit is a line curving to the north, but drawn from Suez to the head of the Persian Gulf. The greatest length of Arabia, thus limited, is 1,300 miles. The greatest width is 1,500 miles. The total area is about 1,200,000 square miles. The total population is estimated anywhere from 5,000,000 upward. Arabia is not a country. Turkey owns a strip along the Red Sea, and another down the Persian Gulf. Aden, at the southwest corner, belongs to England. The Arabian kingdom of Oman on the southeast shore is independent. The rest of Arabia is occupied by independent tribes under their sheiks. Turkish Arabia, which includes the cities of Mecca and Medina, has an area of about 170,000 square miles, and a population of over 1,000,000. Oman has a territory of about 82,000 square miles and a population of perhaps 800,000. Any estimate of the population of the interior is guesswork. The ancients divided that part of Arabia with which they were acquainted into three parts: The Red Sea coast was known as Arabia Felix, or Arabia the Blest; the northwestern portion of the country was known as Arabia Petraea, or Stony Arabia; eastward from these regions stretched an unknown extent designated by them as Arabia Deserta, or Desert Arabia. The surface of Arabia may be divided into three regions. A comparatively narrow coast region of sands, valleys, cliffs, and ranges, partly barren and partly fertile, runs around the entire coast from Mt. Sinai to the head of the Persian Gulf. Seen from passing ships, this exterior region is in general forbidding. This is the Arabia Felix of sacred geography,--a region of the date, the cocoanut palm, and the famous coffee originally exported from the port of Mocha. It produces aromatic plants and substances such as aloes, benzoin, balsam, frankincense, gum arabic, and myrrh, giving rise to Milton's oft quoted words: Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest. Beans, rice, lentils, tobacco, melons, saffron, olives, poppy or opium, sesame, and castor oil are produced along the various valleys and terraces of this part of the peninsula. Within this broken border is found a second belt of similar extent. It varies in width, but, except where interrupted by the fertile district about Mecca, this region is a featureless desert of shifting sands and scanty vegetation, like that of the Sahara. This desert belt, never crossed, it is said, by the foot of Greek or Roman conqueror, shelters a third large, more elevated interior region containing large areas of fertile soil well adapted to pasturage. This grassy region is the home of the Bedouin or unsettled Arab. Like their ancestors, the interior Arabs are nomadic in character. Their wealth consists in horses, cattle, and camels, and flocks of sheep and goats. They live in tents, and move with their flocks from place to place according to the season. The camel is described in a special article under that head. The ownership of the Arabian horse is confined entirely to the chiefs. It is considered beneath an Arab's dignity to sell his horse. Colts are brought up with the family. The genuine Arab horse is most frequently gray, then chestnut and white or sorrel, but never a dark bay. It is claimed that the Arabian horse can carry its owner at a gallop for twenty-four hours without requiring a drink. From the seashore to the interior Arabia presents a great variety of surface. The tender-eyed gazelle, the fleetest and most graceful of the antelope kind, is still found in Arabia. The long-maned lion, the ape, tiger, panther, lynx, wolf, jackal, hyena, black-faced monkey, kangaroo rat, hare, mountain goat, and wild ass are found in one part or another of Arabia. Of birds, the ostrich, hunted for its feathers and eggs, eagles, vultures, bustards, sparrowhawks, partridges, rock pigeons, guinea fowls, ducks, cranes, larks, sparrows, finches, thrushes, and parrots are found in various provinces. Scorpions and centipedes are common in the rocks and arid regions; while bees store their honey in the rock crevices of the mountains. Flies, mosquitoes, ants, and spiders are considered unusually troublesome. Parts of Arabia are also devastated by flights of locusts related to the Rocky Mountain species that at times alights in the fields of the Mississippi Valley. Arabia has played an important part in history. It has given the world the Arabian horse, the Arabian camel, the Moslem religion, and has sent forth the Saracenic armies that overran Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. The Arabic language is akin to the Persian and the Hebrew. At one time the Arabs were the chief scholars of the world, and possessed the largest libraries. The eminent physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians of the day were Arabians. In name as well as origin, algebra is Arabic. Bagdad on the Tigris and Cordova in Spain were famous sites of Arabic learning, and were thronged by the students of Asia and the western world before the great universities of Europe had been thought of, or were even possible. Almanac, zenith, azimuth, and nadir; algebra, zero, and cipher; alcohol, coffee, and sherbet; elixir and syrup; sofa, cotton, and mohair; artichoke, arsenal, assassin, fakir, hegira, sumach, jar, tariff, amber, and Moslem, are all from the Arabic, indicating the extent to which we are indebted to the Arabic scholars of the Middle Ages. The influence of Arabic writers upon the literature of Europe has also been very great. Translations of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments are still the delight of young folks. For extravagant, fairyland effects, the Moslem architecture of the Alhambra is without a rival. See MOHAMMED; MECCA; ADEN; ALHAMBRA; BAGDAD.