This seems to me extraordinary, if brass was at such a price in Arabia, that it could be here employed in the meanest and most common uses. However this be, the inhabitants of the Continent, and of the peninsula of Arabia opposite to it, of all denominations agree, that this was the royal seat of the Queen of Saba, famous in ecclesiastical history for her journey to Jerusalem; that these works belonged to her, and were erected at the place of her residence; that all the gold, silver, and perfumes came from her kingdom of Sofala, which was Ophir, and which reached from thence to Azab, upon the borders of the Red Sea, along the coast of the Indian Ocean. It will very possibly be thought, that this is the place in which I should mention the journey that the Queen of Saba made into Palestine; but as the dignity of the expedition itself, and the place it holds in Jewish antiquities, merits that it should be treated in a place by itself, so the connection that it is supposed to have with the foundation of the monarchy of Abyssinia, the country whose history I am going to write, makes this particularly proper for the sake of connection; and I shall, therefore, continue the history of the trade of the Arabian Gulf to a period in which I can resume the narrative of this expedition without occasioning any interruption to either. CHAP. V. _Fluctuating State of the India Trade--Hurt by Military Expeditions of the Persians--Revives under the Ptolemies--Falls to Decay under the Romans._ The prosperous days of the commerce with the Elanitic Gulf seemed to be at this time nearly past; yet, after the revolt of the ten tribes, Edom remaining to the house of David, they still carried on a sort of trade from the Elanitic Gulf, though attended with many difficulties. This continued till the reign of Jehosaphat[292]; but, on Jehoram’s succeeding that prince, the Edomites[293] revolted and chose a king of their own, and were never after subject to the kings of Judah till the reign of Uzziah[294], who conquered Eloth, fortified it, and having peopled it with a colony of his own, revived the old traffic. This subsisted till the reign of Ahaz, when Rezin king of Damascus took Eloth[295], and expelled the Jews, planting in their stead a colony of Syrians. But he did not long enjoy this good fortune, for the year after, Rezin[296] was conquered by Tilgath-pileser; and one of the fruits of this victory was the taking of Eloth, which never after returned to the Jews, or was of any profit to Jerusalem.