ABSTRACT
THE SABAEAN EMPIRE, whose destinies the Queen of Sheba once shared, has provided one of those mysteries of history which remains partially veiled, and the Sabaeans rank with the Kmers of Angkor as a race whose coming to, and going from the stage of civilisation has never been explained. Thousands of years ago, when Britain was still an Ultima Thule and Imperial Rome had not yet arisen, the land of Saaba was renowned throughout the civilised world; its name was circulated as a household word for wealth and luxury, and it had the practical monopoly of the incense trade-that old and bearded trafficking between Asia and the classical countries. The Sabaean Empire developed a legendary and fabulous splendour, glowing with the force and inner fire of the rubies that are still found from time to time in Southern Arabia. The riddle of Saaba, which has puzzled scholars and explorers alike, has been kept up into modern times, since entry to the heart of the old kingdom is still extremely hazardous, quite apart from the fact that the boundaries of the empire have never been mapped. This gap in the records of history and geography is pleasantly stimulating, for it is good to know that a few apertures remain along the increasing encyclopaedic wall of hard facts. Bricks, scholarly mortar, and stone inscriptions have been contributed from time to time to the Saaba breach, but there is still room for the passage of doubt and controversy in the circuit of a people whose trading enterprises are thought to have stretched tropically far south to Zimbabwe in Rhodesia.
