..........

doweens,

Arabs.

CHAP. this vast peninsula might be out-numbered by L. the subjects of a fertile and industrious proManners vince. Along the shores of the Persian gulf, of of the Be- the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyoor pastoral phagi, or fish-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, 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

k

i Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of Hejaz, (Periplus, Maris Erythræri, 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. 1. i, c. 19).

* 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.

L.

The horse

the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under CHAP. 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: the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honours and the memory of the purest race: 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

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

m 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 1 were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemeu 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 little spirit, (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339): their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armour.

VOI. IX.

L.

CHAP 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. The camel 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 younger and tender flesh has the taste of veal:" 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

"Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solunt 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 Juxurious, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii, p 404).

L.

scarcity of winter, they remove their encamp- CHAP. ments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yerem, or the neighbourhood 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.

Yet an essential difference may be found be- Cities of tween the hords of Scythia and the Arabian Arabia. tribes, since many of the latter were collected into towns and employed in the labours 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. Among the fortytwo cities of Arabia, enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, and

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.

P It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. iii, p. 54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of 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).

CHAP. the marvellous reservoir of Merab, were conL. structed by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the proMecca; phetic glories of MEDINA' and MECCA,' near the Red Sea, 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 Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its greatness, which had 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

a Pocock, Specimen, p. 57; Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 52. Moriaba, 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).

The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, xar' ¿çoxny, to Yatreb, (the Latrippa 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 Bahreim. xv; to Bassora, xviii; to Cusah, 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 twenty five English miles for a day's journey. From the land of Frankincense (Hadramant, in Yerem, 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.

Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians, (d'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371; Pocock, Specimen, p. 125128; Abulfeda, p. 11-40). As no unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (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).