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be expiated only by the blood of the offender; CHAP. and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportuni ty of revenge. A fine or compensation for murder is familiar to the barbarians of every age; but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent to the guilty person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are exposed in their turn to the danger of reprisals, the interest and principal of the bloody debt are accumulated; the individuals of either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, 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 honour, 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 months, was observed Annual by the Arabs before the time of Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility; and

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 Karon, c. 2, p. 20; c. 17, p. 220, with Sale's Observations.

truce.

CHAP. this partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare.

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Their so

fications

and vir

tues.

But the spirit of rapine and revenge was at cial quali- tempered 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 Chaldean tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects; 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. The monuments of the Homer

P Procopius (de Bell. Persic. 1. i. c. 16) places the two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabian 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 in the ixth chapter of the Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot, Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii, p. 20, 21.

9 Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo Maris Erythæi, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the dialects of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously treated by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150-154); Casiri, (Bibliot. Hispana-Arabica, tom. 1, 83, 292; tom. ii, p. 25, &c.), and Niebuhr, (Description de l'Arabic, p. 72-86). I pass slighty; I am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.

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poetry.

ites were inscribed with an obsolete and mys- CHAP. terious character; but the Cufic letters, the ground-work 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 ge- Love of nius 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

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. Orent. 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 sixtynine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favourable specimen of Arabian wit.

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CHAP. only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read in our language, ine seven original poems which were inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Mecca. The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the age; and if they sympathised with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The indissoluble union of generosity and valour 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 men knew not how to give, nor Examples the women to deny. The same hospitality, of genero- which was practised by Abraham and celebrat

sity.

ed 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 honour and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and respectful; he shares the wealth or the poverty of his host: and, after a needless repose, he is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and hand are more largely

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

t Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30

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expanded by the wants of a brother or a friend; CHAP but the heroic acts that could deserve the public.......... applause, must have passed 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

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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 honoured kinsman. The servant of Kais informed the 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; 66 'if you refuse, I renounce them." At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his staff. The character of