CHAP. of manhood; and the fenfe of his own import

L.

Civil wars and private revenge.

ance teaches him to accoft his equals without levity, and his fuperiors without awe 34. The li berty of the Saracens furvived their conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and familiar language of their fubjects: they afcended the pulpit to perfuade and edify the congregation: nor was it before the feat of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the Abbaffides adopted the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Perfian and Byzantine courts.

In the ftudy of nations and men, we may obferve the causes that render them hoftile or friendly to each other, that tend to narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exafperate, the focial character. The feparation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind, has accustomed them to confound the ideas of ftranger and enemy; and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of jurifprudence, which they believe and practise to the prefent hour. They pretend, that in the divifion of the earth the rich and fertile climates were affigned to the other branches of the human family; and that the pofterity of the outlaw Ifmael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandife: the

34 I must remind the reader that d'Arvieux, d'Herbelot, and Niebuhr, reprefent, in the most lively colours, the manners and government of the Arabs, which are illuftrated by many incidental paffages in the life of Mahomet.

caravans

66

caravans that traverse the defert are ranfomed or pillaged; and their neighbours, fince the remote times of Job and Sefoftris 35, have been the victims of their rapacious fpirit. If a Bedoween difcovers from afar a folitary traveller, he rides furiously against him, crying, with a loud voice, "Undress thyfelf, thy aunt (my wife) is without "a garment." A ready fubmiffion entitles him to mercy; refiftance will provoke the aggreffor, and his own blood muft expiate the blood which he prefumes to fhed in legitimate defence. A fingle robber, or a few affociates, are branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous band affume the character of a lawful and honourable war. The temper of a people, thus armed against mankind, was doubly inflamed by the domeftic licenfe of rapine, murder, and revenge. In the conftitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now confined to a fmall, and the actual exercise to a much finaller, lift of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and renown, might point his javelin against the life of his countryman. The union of the nation confifted only in a vague refemblance of language and manners; and in each community, the jurisdiction of the magiftrate was mute and impotent. Of the time of ignorance which pre

35 Obferve the first chapter of Job, and the long wall of 1500 stadia which Sefoftris built from Pelufium to Heliopolis (Diodor. Sicul. tom i. 1. i. p. 67.). Under the name of Hycfos, the fhepherd kings, they had formerly fubdued Egypt (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 98—163, &c.).

CHAP.

L.

ceded

CHA P. ceded Mahomet, feventeen hundred battles "

L.

are

recorded by tradition: hoftility was embittered with the rancour of civil faction; and the recital, in profe or verse, of an obfolete feud was fufficient to rekindle the fame paffions among the defcendants of the hoftile tribes. In private life, every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of its own cause. The nice fenfibility of honour, which weighs the infult rather than the injury, fhed its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs the honour of their women, and of their beards, is moft eafily wounded; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the offender; and fuch is their patient inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or compenfation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of every age; but in Arabia the kinfmen of the dead are at liberty to accept the atonement, or to exercife with their own hands. the law of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head of the murderer, fubftitutes an innocent to the guilty perfon, and transfers the penalty to the best and most confiderable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are expofed in their turn to the danger of reprisals, the

36 Or, according to another account, 1200 (d'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75): the two hiftorians who wrote of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in the ixth and xth century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was occafioned by two horfes, lafted forty years, and ended in a proverb (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.).

interest

intereft and principal of the bloody debt are accumulated; the individuals of either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may fometimes elapfe before the account of vengeance be finally fettled 37. This fanguinary spirit, ig

38

CHAP.

truce.

L..

norant of pity or forgiveness, has been moderated, however, by the maxims of honour, which require in every private encounter fome decent equality of age and strength, of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of four, months, Annual was observed by the Arabs before the time of Mahomet, during which their fwords were religioufly fheathed both in foreign and domeftic hoftility; and this partial truce is more ftronglyexpreffive of the habits of anarchy and warfare 3 But the spirit of rapine and revenge was at tempered by the milder influence of trade and literature. The folitary peninfula is encompaffed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world: the merchant is the friend of mankind: and the annual caravans imported the first feeds of knowledge and politenefs into the cities, and even the camps of the defert. Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from

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

38 Procopius (de Bell. Perfic. I. i. c. 16 ) places the two holy months about the fummer folftice. The Arabians confecrate 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 fix times (Sale's Preliminary Difcourse, p. 147-150. and Notes on the ixth chapter of the Koran, p. 154, &C. Cafiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p. 20, 21.).

Their fotions and

cial qualif

virtues.

L.

CHA P. the fame original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldæan tongues; the independence of. the tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects ""; but each, after their own, allowed a juft preference to the pure and perfpicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the refinement of manners; and her fpeech could diverfify the fourfcore names of honey, the two hundred of a ferpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thoufand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was entrusted to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of the Homerites were infcribed with an obfolete and mysterious character; but the Cufic letters, the ground-work of the prefent 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 fharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit ftrong and fententious 4°,

* 39 Arrian, in the fecond 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 (Specimen, p. 150154.), Cafiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1. 83. 292. tom. ii. p. 25, &c.), and Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 72-86.). I pass flightly ; I am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.

121.

4o A familiar tale in Voltaire's Zadig (le Chien et le Cheval) is related, to prove the natural fagacity of the Arabs (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46.); but d'Arvieux, or rather La Roque (Voyage de Palestine, p. 92.), denies the boafted fuperiority of the Bedoweens. The one hundred and fixty-nine fentences of Ali (tranflated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favourable fpecimen of Arabian wit. and

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