and fifty years may sometimes elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled." This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in every private encounter some decent equality of age and strength, of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of four, monthis, was observed by the Arabs before the time of Mahomet, durng which their swords were religiously sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare."

But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is encompassed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world; the merchant is the friend of mankind; and the annual caravans imported the first seeds of knowledge and politeness into the cities, and even the camps of the desert. Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldæan tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects;39 but each, after their own, allowed a just preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people.

37 The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the revenge of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p. 26-31.) The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in the Koran, c. 2, p. 20. c. 17, p. 230, with Sale's Observations.

38 Procopius (de Bell. Persic. 1. i. c. 16) places the two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians consecrate four months of the year-the first, seventh, eleventh, and twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce was infringed only four or six times, (Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes on the ixth chapter of the Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom ii. p. 20, 21.)

39 Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo Maris Erythræi, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the dialects of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously treated by Pocock, (Speci men, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom ii. p. 25, &c.,) and Niebuhr, (Description de l'Arabie, p. 79 -se) I pass slightly; I am not fond of repeating words like a per roi

The monurants of the Homerites were inscribed with an ob solete and mysterious character; but the Cufic letters, the groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious," and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion had now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald had raised his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must have contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the gen erous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read in our own language, the seven original poems which were inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Mecca.11 The Arabian poets were the historians and

41

40 A familiar tale in Voltaire's Zadig (le Chien et le Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46:) but D'Arvieux, or rather La Roque, (Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted superiority of the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixtyuine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a 'ust and favorable specimen of Arabian wit.*

41 Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot. HispanoArabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17, &c.) speak of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven poems of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir William Jones; but his honorable mission to India has deprived us of his own notes, far more interesting in the obscure and obsolete text.

Compare the Arabic proverbs translated by Burckhardt. London

moralists of the age; and if they sympathized with the preju dices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of their country. men. The indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling theme of their song; and when they pointed their keenest satire against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny." The same hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host; and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion and experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, was entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive application was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdallah, the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice of a suppliant, "O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a traveller, and in distress!" He instantly dismounted to present the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman. The servant of Kais informed he second suppliant that his master was asleep: but he immediately added, "Here is a purse of seven thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and here is an order that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;" the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was supporting his steps on the shoulders of two slaves. "Alas!" he replied, "my coffers are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce them." At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his staff. The character of Hatem is the

"Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30

perfect model of Arabian virtues he was brave and liberal an eloquent poet, and a successful robber; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at the prayer of a sup pliant enemy he restored both the captives and the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of justice they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity and

benevolence.

The religion of the Arabs," as well as of the Indians, consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The bright luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a Deity their number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar, eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they steered by the guidance of the stars: their names, and order, and daily station, were familiar to the curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught by experience to divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of the moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on grave, that he might serve his master in another life; and

the

48 D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen, p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their liberality; and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet: "Videbis eum cum accesseris ex ultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab illo petis."

*

44 Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the ancient Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136, 163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and concisely interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-24;) and Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580-590) has added some valuable remarks.

* See the translation of the am using Persian romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes, Esq., among the works published by the Oriental Transla tion Fund.-M.

45

the invocation of departed spirits implies that they were stil! endowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am careless, of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth, of their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites and the object of his fantastic worship; but the ration, i every age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the CAABA ascends beyond the Christian æra; in describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus 5 has remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabæans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians; the linen or silken veil, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years before the time of Mahomet.** A tent, or a cavern, might suffice for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the monarchs of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the original model." A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of the

46 Ἱερὸν ἁγίωτατον ἴδρυται τιμώμενον ὑπὸ πάντων Αράβων περιττό TEOOV, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. 1. iii. p. 211.) The character and position are so correctly apposite, that I am surprised how this curious passage should have been read without notice or application. Yet this famous temple had been overlooked by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,) whom Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the Sicilian more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba built between the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their respective histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p. 72. Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. ii. p. 770.)*

46 Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of Mahomet we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the Christian æra The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda, in Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)

4 The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely copied in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish draught, which Reland (de Religione Mohammedicâ, p. 113-123) has corrected and explained from the best authorities. For the description and legend of the

• Mr. Forster (Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118. et seq.) has raised objection, as I think, fatal to this hypothesis of Gibbon. The temple. situated in the country of the Banizomeneis, was not between the Thamu. dites and the Sabæans, but higher up than the coast inhabited by the former. Mr. Forster would place it as far north as Moiiah. I am no quite satisfied that this will agree with the whole description of Diodorus -M. 1945.