winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they alternate raise and scatter, are compared to the blows 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 fertilize 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,5 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 palmtree 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 numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 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

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.

• 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 odors that are blown by the Loth east wind from the Sabæan coast:

Many a league.

Pleased with the grateful scent, ole Ocean smues

(Plin. Hist. Natur. xii 42.)

the splendid coloring 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 favors 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 was taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite .o the realm of Persia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of Arabia Felix: 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.8

The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi,9 or fish

'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.)*

• 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.

• Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of Hejez, (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 cannibals were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)

A orilliant passage in the geographical poem of Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the wealth and fertility of Yemen Greek mythology, and the traditions of the "gorgeous east," of India as well as Arabia, are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare, on the southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut. Wellsted -M.

eaters, continued to wander in 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, almos 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 seacoast. 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, 10 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 friend and a laborious slave. 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: 12 the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated; and

10 See the Specimen Historiæ 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, Amsderdam, 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— 844) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.

"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 Neged 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 despised as having too much body and too tle spirit, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339) their strength wa requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armor.

the birth of a noble foal was esteemed, among the ribes, 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 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 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 a ready mere luxurious, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 404.)

Yet an esseria difference may be found betwveer 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 knowledge. A nong the forty-two cities of Arabia,14 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,16 were constructed by the kings of the Homcrites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of MEDINA 17 and MECCA,18 near the Red Sea,

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- the faith of the writer might be large.

15 It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. iii. 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 appropriated, xar' i§óz, 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 Cairo, 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 estimate 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'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 366-371. 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 Thevenot

⚫ See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of water-an event of great importance m the Arabian annals, and discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists. — M.