the birth of a noble foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentle ness and attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop their sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking, a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal:13 a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons, they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is a life of danger and distress and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the head of ten thousand horse.

13 Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces sunt, was he opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 88.) Maheinef himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow, and does not ever mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and Medina was already more lxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 404.)

Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were collected into towns, and employed in the labors. of trade and agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the desert and the Bedoweens derived from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and some rudiments of art and knowl edge. Among the forty-two cities of Arabia," enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana,15 and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, were constructed by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of MEDINA" and MECCA, near the Red Sea,

16

18

14 Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom. i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small-te faith of the writer might be large.

15 It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p. 54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Iman of Yemen, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from Aden, p. 53.)

16 Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p. 58.)*

17 The name of city, Medina, was appropriat d, kur šóxn", to Yatreb, (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet. The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations, or days' journey of a caravan, (p. 15 :) to Bahrein, xv.; to Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to Cano, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden, xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw's Travels, p. 477;) which, according to the esti mate of D'Anville, (Mesures Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twentyfive English miles for a day's journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny (Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels These measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.

18 Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians, (D'Her belot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 368-371. Pocock, Specimen, p. 125 --128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent; and the short hints of The venot

* See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Me riaba by the Romans i Acubtful. The town never recovered the inundation which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of water-an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and discussed at considerable length by mcders Orientalists.-M

and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of three barren mountains: the so is a rock; the water even of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty iniles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abys sinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Challæan exiles;1 and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal distance, a month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the tedious and troublesome

(Voyages du Levant, part i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv. p. 167.)*

19 Strabo, 1. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt houses near Bas Bora, in D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.

Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly con verted to Mahometanism. His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and he ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were unfortunately ost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey; and, lastly, by Burck hardt, whose description leaves nothing wanting to satisfy the curiou itv.-M.

navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of Saana aud Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics; a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons mited the love of arms with the profession of merchandise."

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favor of the posterity of Ismael.1 Some exceptions, that can neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the sultans of Egypt,22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman province of Arabia" embraced the peculiar wilderness in which

20 Mirum dictû ex innumeris populis pars æqua in commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.) See Sale's Koran, Sûra. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i.

p. 72, 120, 126, &c.

21 A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,) the extent of the application, and the foundation of the pedigree.*

22 It was subdued, A. D. 1173, by a brother of the great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites, (Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D'Herbelot, p. 477.)

28 By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A. D. 1538) and Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir's Hist. of the Othman Empire, p. 201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.).

"Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra, which dated their æra from the year 105, when they were subdued by Palma, a ueutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, 1. lxviii) Petra was the capital of the Nabathæans; whose name is derived from the eldest of the aons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with the Commentaries of Jerom,

See note 3 to chap. xlvi The atter point is probably the least com stable of the three -M

26

Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the present sovereign of the Turks " may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity, and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their

Le Clerc, and Calmet.)* Justinian relinquished a palm country of ten days' journey to the south of Elah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. 1. i c. 19,) and the Romans maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo Maris Erythræi, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (even kun, Pagus Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina D'Anville, Mémoire sur l'Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia.

25 Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 302, 303, 329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of the Turkish empire in Arabia.+

26 Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. 1. xix. p. 390-393, edit. Wesseling) bas clearly exposed the freedom of the Ñabathæan Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his son.

*On the ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and Leon de Laborde.-M.

Niebuhr's, notwithstanding the multitude of later travellers, maintains as ground, as the lassical work on Arabia.-M.

VOL. V.