VI. The inhabitants of the Arabian deserts are descendants of Ismael, the son of Abraham and Hagar; of whom Moses relates, that the God of the Jews declared, before his birth, that he should be a wild man; that his hand should be against every man, and that every man's hand should be against him'. Ismael became an archer2, and dwelt in the wilderness, where his descendants remain even to this day; living in clans or tribes. As Ismael was an archer, so were his descendants in the age of Isaiah3; and, till the time when fire-arms were introduced, they were the most skilful archers in the world. From age to age have these Ismaelites been in perpetual hostility with the surrounding nations; and yet they occupy the same wilderness still. They retain the same manners, habits, and customs. Savage in character, they are social only to those of their own tribe. Intractable they wander from spring to spring; subsisting chiefly on their herds of cattle and camels; and living in tents covered with skins. Like the Jews, they refer to twelve original tribes: they practise circumcision; marry only among themselves; and retain with equal pertinacity their peculiar manners and prejudices. In one remarkable circumstance, however, they differ: the Jews still adhere to the dispensations of Moses; the Ismaelites to those of Mahomet. And while all the countries, which surround them, have been subject to 2 Gen. xxi. v. 20. Gen. xvi. v. 12. 3 Isaiah, xxi. v. 17. storms and revolutions beyond those of any other quarter of the globe; and while the Jews are scattered through all the nations of the earth, they have subsisted through every species of vicissitude. And though Sesostris, the Persians, Alexander, Pompey, Gallus, Trajan, and Severus, raised large armies, and in part executed designs of extirpation against them, yet were they never able to do them any very serious injury. They rode without bridles or saddles'; and in the hottest of engagements managed their horses only with their whips2; charging their enemies generally in the night. They were a healthy, long-lived, people1 ; they clad themselves in loose garments; had a plurality of wives; and seldom indulged in meat; living chiefly on herbs, roots, milk, cheese, and honey. If the Numidians were superior to the Nigritiæ, Getulians, and Mauritanians, the inhabitants of the deserts of Petra seem as much to have surpassed the Numidians. When Demetrius, by order of his father Antigonus, sate down before Petra with an army, and began an attack upon it, an Arab accosted him after the following manner :-"King Demetrius: what is it you would have? What madness can have induced you to invade a people, inhabiting a wilderness, where neither corn, nor wine, nor any other thing, you can subsist upon, are to be found? We inhabit, these 1 Two passages in Livy seem to contradict this: lib. xxi. c. 44, 46; also Sallust in Jugurtho. 2 Oppian de Venat. lib. iv. Herodian, lib. vii. 3 Vide Nic. Damascene, in Excerpt. Vales. p. 518. 4 Appian in Lybic. c. vi. 39, 64. 5 Plut. in Vit. Demet. desolate plains for the sake of liberty; and submit to such inconveniencies, as no other people can bear, in order to enjoy it. You can never force us to change our sentiments, nor way of life; therefore we desire you to retire out of our country, as we have never injured you; to accept some presents from us; and to prevail with your father to rank us among his friends." Upon hearing this, Demetrius accepted their presents, and raised the siege. VII. In the great desert of Sahara (in Africa), so extensive and so waste is the prospect, that Adams travelled with the Moors nine and twenty days, without seeing a single plant, or even a blade of grass! and Sidi Hamet reported to Riley, that he journied over the same desert twenty-eight days, in another direction, with the same aspect of sterility. During ten days of this journey, the ground was as hard, as the floor of a house. He was on his way to Tombuctoo, in a caravan, consisting of eight hundred men, and three thousand camels. In a subsequent journey, with a thousand men and four thousand.camels, they encountered the burning blast of the desert. For two days they laid down with their faces to the ground. Two hundred camels, and upwards of three hundred men perished. And yet the time shall come," says Isaiah, "when the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." 66 The wildest waste but this can shew On mountain or on glen, Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, The weary eye can ken. Lord of the Isles. This desert is equal in extent to the one-half of Europe': it is the largest in the world. Here Nature presents. herself in characters of frightful sterility. Gloomy, barren, and void, uniformity here produces sensations of the most distressing and disconsolate melancholy. A heat prevails, under which Nature herself seems to sink; the mind experiences no delight from the imagination; the soul feels no inspiration of poetry: even Tasso would be read in repulsive silence; curiosity is entombed, as it were; and the fancy pictures nothing to animate the dreadful waste, but wild boars, panthers, lions, and serpents. In boundless seas; impenetrable forests; and in vast savannahs, there resides grandeur, heightened by an awful repose. Here the imagination pauses for materials, wherewith to heighten the desolation and despair. This silence! this solitude! more horrific are to the imagination, than the perspective of whole ages of action, difficulty, and labour. Buonaparte, in crossing the desert, to inspect the forts of Suez, and to reconnoitre the shores of the Red Sea, passed only one tree in all the journey; the whole of which was tracked with bones and bodies of men and animals. The night was cold, and there was no fuel. His attendants gathered the dry bones and bodies of the dead, that laid bleaching in the desert: of these they 1 Vide Rennell's Appendix, p. lxxxiii. made fires'; and the Conqueror of Egypt laid himself down upon cloaks and slept in the warmth. 66 My friend," said Denon to Desaix, as they were one day contemplating the same deserts, "is not this an error of Nature? Nothing here receives life; every thing inspires melancholy, or fear. It seems as if Providence, after having provided abundantly for the other portions of the globe, suddenly desisted, for want of materials; or abandoned it to its original sterility." "Or is it," replied Desaix, "the anciently inhabited part of the world, in age and decrepitude? Men have so abused the gifts of Nature, that, as a punishment for their ingratitude, Nature may have sterilized their soil!" VIII. While surveying Nature under these aspects, where all is inanimation, and mystery, in the midst of a profound, and frightful silence, the mind bends beneath the weight of an oppression, like that of a nightmare No quadruped, no bird, no insect, gives relief to a circular horizon of unvaried aspect. A boundless view, like that of the Atlantic, or Pacific; but destitute of the sound of the winds, the music of waters, the teinture of clouds, and the motion, which gives life and circulation to the most torpid of temperatures. All is one vast scene of lifeless monotony! In the night, however, the heavens exhibit a moving picture of magnificence, not to be paralleled in any other part of the globe: the God of Nature seeming to have 1 Vide Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Expéditions en Egypte et en Syrie, par J. Miot. |