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the sword in one hand and the koran in the other, erected CHAP. his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolutions which have impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the globe'.

tion of

In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and DescripEthiopia, the Arabian peninsula, may be conceived as Arabia. a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the straits of Babelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles to the Indian ocean. The entire surface of the peninsula exceeds in a fourfold pro

1 As in this and the following chapter I shall display much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters, who have transfused their science into the Latin, French, and English languages. Their collections, versions, and histories, I shall occasionally notice.

2 The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge may be traced in Agatharcides (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. i.), Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 159–167. 1. iii. p. 211–216. edit. Wesseling), Strabo (1. xvi. p. 1112-1114. from Eratosthenes, p. 1122. 1132. from Artemidorus), Dionysius (Periegesis, 927-969). Pliny (Hist. Natur. v. 12. vi 32), and Ptolemy (Descript. et Tabulæ Urbium, in Hudson, tom. iii). 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125–128.) from the Geogra phy of the Sherif al Edrissi, render is still more dissatisfied with the version or abridgment (p. 24-27.44-56. 108, &c. 119, &c.) which the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia Nubiensis (Paris, 1619); but the Latin and French translators, Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland (Voyage de la Palestine par la Roque, p. 265-346), have opened to us the Arabia of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque Orientale of d'Herbelot, p. 120. et alibi passim. 3. The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455), and Niebuhr (Description, 1773. Voyages, tom.i. 1776) deserve an honourable distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p. 416-510.) has compiled with judgment; and d'Anville's Maps (Orbis Veteribus Notus, and Ire Partie de l'Asie) should lie before the reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 208-231.

3 Abulfed. Descript. Arabiæ, p. 1. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks first passed the Euphrates (Anabasis, 1. i. c. 10. p. 29. edit. Wells). 4 Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning, 1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulph) is no more than a part of the Mare Rubrum the Epubga Banaoon of the ancients, which was extended to the indefinite space of the Indian ocean. 2. That the synonomous words epugos, ados, alluded to the colour of the blacks or negroes (Dissert. Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117).

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The soil

and cli

mate.

CHAP. portion that of Germany or France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatised with the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are decked by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapour; the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood, that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilise the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca', after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters, which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry in the cultivation of the palm-tree and the vine. The high lands that border on the Indian ocean are distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and water the air is more temperate, the fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race more nu

5 In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route of the Hadjees, in Shaw's Travels, p. 477.

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merous; the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the CHAP. toil of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense and coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of the happy and the splendid colouring of fancy and fiction has been suggested by contrast and countenanced by distance. It was for this earthly paradise that nature had reserved her choicest favours and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives: the soil was impregnated with gold' and gems, and both the land and sea were taught to exhale the odours of aromatic sweets. This division of Division the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to the sandy, the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians them- stony, and selves; and it is singular enough, that a country, whose the happy language and inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient geogra phy. The maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of Arabia Fœlix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea.

of the

Arabia.

doweens,

The measure of population is regulated by the means Manners of subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast penin- of the Besula might be out-numbered by the subjects of a fertile or pastoral and industrious province. Along the shores of the Per-Arabs. sian gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the

6 The aromatics, especially the thus or frankincense, of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet (Paradise Lost, 1. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odours that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabean coast:

...........Many a league,

Pleas'd with the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles.

(Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42).

7 Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was twice, and silver ten times the value of gold (de Mari Rubro, p. 60). These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no gold mines are at present known in Arabia (Niebuhr, Description, p. 124).

8 Consult, peruse, and study, the Specimen Historia Arabum of Pocock! (Oxon. 1650, in 4to). The thirty pages of text and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated (Oxon. 1663, in 4to); the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a classic and original work on the Arabian antiquities.

CHAP. Ichthyophagi, or fish-eaters, continued to wander in L. quest of their precarious food. In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying his race, by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence to the narrow margin of the sea-coast. But in an early period of antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert, and in the portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of their ancestors, who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful The horse. friend and a laborious slave11. Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood the Bedoweens preserve with superstitious

9 Arrian remarks the Ichthyophagi of the coast of Hejaz (Periplus Maris Erythræi, p. 12.) and beyond Aden (p. 15). It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time, perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any can nibals were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian (Procop. de Bell. Persic. I. i. c. 19).

10 See the Specimen Historia Arabum of Pocock, p. 2. 5. 86, &c. The journey of M. d'Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of the emir of Mount Carmel (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam, 1718), exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 327 —344) and Volney (tom. i. p. 343 -385), the last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.

11 Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M. de Buffon.

12 For the Arabian horses, see d'Arvieux (p. 159-173.) and Niebuhr (p.. 142-144). At the end of the xiiith century, the horses of Naged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe, the tenth and last class, were generally

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care, the honours and the memory of the purest race; CHAP. the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated; and 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 gentleness 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 The cabeast of burthen can perform, without eating or drink. mel. ing, a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large hag, 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 veal13: 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 neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the dangerous license of visit

despised, as having too much body and too little spirit (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339): their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armour.

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

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