It is impossible, however, to ignore the fact that the sea route to North-western India was utilized in very ancient times; and although its connection with the northern landward gates of India may appear to be rather obscure, that connection is a matter which actually concerns us rather nearly in the present day. For it is by this ancient sea route that Persia and Baluchistan, Seistan and Afghanistan derive those supplies of small arms and ammunition which are abundant in those countries, but which never pass through India. Muskat is the chief depot for distribution, and the Persian ports of Bandar Abbas, Jask, or Pasni on the Makran coast are utilized as ports for the interior, leading by routes which are quite sufficiently good for caravan traffic towards the point where Afghan territory meets that of Persia and Baluchistan just south of Seistan. Once in Seistan they are well behind the passes which split our nearer line of defence in the trans-Indus hills. Even our command of the sea fails to suppress this traffic, which has led to such a general distribution of arms of precision (chiefly of German manufacture), that these countries may fairly claim to be able to arm their whole population. No recent researches in the Persian Gulf or on the Persian coast have added much to the sum of our knowledge respecting the early navigation of these Eastern seas, but there can be no question as to its immense antiquity. The Ph[oe]nician settler in Syria and Mesopotamia has been traced back to his primeval home in the Bahrein Islands, which, if Herodotus is correct in his estimated date for the founding of Tyre (2756 years B.C.), takes us back to very early times indeed for the coast navigation of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Seas. Hiram, King of Tyre, could look back through long ages to the days when his Ph[oe]nician forefathers started their well-packed vessels (the Ph[oe]nicians were famous for their skill in stowing cargo) to crawl along the coasts of Makran and Western India for the purpose of acquiring those stores of spices and gold which first made commerce profitable, or else to make their way westward, guided by the headlands and shore outlines of Southern Arabia, to gather the riches from African fields. Makran is full of strange relics of immense age for which none can account. Since Egyptology has become a recognized science, who will lay the foundations of such a science for Southern Arabia and Makran? When will some one arise with the wisdom and the leisure to write of the power of ancient Arabia, and to trace the impressions left on the whole world of commerce, of art, of architecture, and literature by the ancient races who hailed from the South?