1

physical and intellectual development. Certainly no mere advantages of country could have availed to keep a people free, under the attacks of so many and powerful foes, without much courage and spirit on their own part. Great energy and strength of will seem conspicuous among them; and the strong attachment between those of the same tribe produced, as of old among the Highland clans of our own kingdom, much pure and generous sentiment, despite its tendency to the same grave faults of character. They have ever been respectful to their elders, and liberal in their hospitality; and their exceeding good faith towards one another is noticed by the father of history.2

Some of the tribes lived in tents, some in towns and cities. Although there seem to be instances of an alternation between predatory and mercantile pursuits on the part of some, yet commerce was naturally more flourishing among the inhabitants of the towns. Nor was merchandise considered in any way dishonourable: the noblest warriors united trade with the profession of arms. Indeed, the very name of the distinguished tribe (the Koreish, or, as French writers give it, Coraychites) from which Mahomet sprung, thought to signfy men of commerce.3

is

And

1 Chateaubriand, cited with approval by Dr. Pritchard (Researches into Physical History of Mankind.) See Art. Arabia in Dr. Smith's 'New Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.'

(Sup

2 Σέβονται δὲ ̓Αράβιοι πίστις ἀνθρώπων ὁμοῖα τοῖσι μάλιστα. ply Bouévois in this construction, says Matthiæ, 'Greek Grammar,' § 290.) Herod. iii. 8.

Caussin (tom. i. pp. 229, 230) thinks this a very probable derivation of the word.

although the Koreish themselves may not have been descended from Ishmael, yet in both these features of character we may trace the influence of the tribes which owned that parentage. For while, on the one hand, this progenitor was to be 'a wild man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against his,' yet we know that, in the third or fourth generation, the Ishmaelites were willing, as merchantmen, to purchase an Hebrew for a slave,' as they journeyed from Gilead to Egypt, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh.'

3

The descent of a large portion of the Arabian tribes from Ishmael, although for very obvious reasons the subject of some sneers on the part of Gibbon, does not appear to have been in any degree shaken, but on the contrary confirmed by more recent research.2 The remaining tribes, with a few comparatively unimportant exceptions, claimed descent from Kahtan, the son of Eber,the Joktan of our version of the Bible, the Yectan of the modern French writer. These last claim to be the oldest and purest race, the Arabel-Araba,' or Arabs of the Arabs, a phrase which has naturally been compared with St. Paul's expression, an Hebrew of the Hebrews.' They and their probable descendants, the Koreish, occupied the north of the country: the Ishmaelites and their descendants (the Himyarites, the Homerita of classic authors) held the south.

1 Genesis, xvi. 12; xxxvii. 25-28.

2 Mr. Forster, in his 'Mahometanism Unveiled,' is considered to have established this point, even by those who (like ourselves) are not prepared to accept his theories.

Genesis, x. 25-29

Among the exceptions alluded to, seem to have been some of the descendants of Abraham by Keturah, and, subsequently, certain of the children of Esau. It is true that Herodotus,1 and it appears also, Ibn-Khaldoun, agree with some ancient traditions in placing certain Cushite and Canaanite tribes in these regions: but these children of Ham disappeared; the Canaanites went to Syria, and there became famous under the title of Phoenicians; the Cushites concentrated themselves in Ethiopia. Any remnants of these Hamite tribes were engulfed by the dominant children of Shem; and thus, from a very early period, Arabia has been inhabited by a purely "Semitic race. 2

This circumstance will not appear unimportant to those who consider how largely it has pleased the Almighty to make the sons of Shem depositaries of spiritual truth. It had been suspected by Mr. Hallam, from the tone of the romance of Antár (supposed to be pre-Mahometan), that however much idolatry might prevail in some parts of Arabia, still the genuine religion of the descendants of Ishmael was a belief in the unity of God as strict as the Koran itself can teach. This suspicion, which had been stated by other writers also, may now be considered as an established truth. To M. Caussin de Perceval belongs the credit of having done the most

1 Herod. i. 1. Φοίνικας . . . . ἀπὸ τῆς Ἐρυθρῆς καλεομένης θαλάσσης. See, however, the note of Bähr upon this passage. The Red Sea may be meant to include the Persian Gulf.

2 Caussin, tom. i p. 5.

Hist. of Middle Ages, vol. ii. chap. 6. (2d Note.)

1

towards its confirmation. Nevertheless, it will be seen, as we proceed, how seriously, before the rise of Mahomet, the monotheistic creed had been sullied and impaired.

6

We know from the vivid portraitures of Sir Walter Scott, how the principle of clanship which gives rise to so much that is striking and devoted in human nature, has likewise its less favourable side; of this unfavourable aspect the Arab displays his full share. Their own writers,' observes Sale, acknowledge that they have a natural dis'position to war, bloodshed, cruelty, and rapine, 'being so much addicted to malice, that they 'scarce ever forget an old grudge." The same writer mentions an amusing theory of some physicians, to the effect that this vindictive spirit is engendered by the frequent use of camel's flesh as food; the camel being an animal most revengeful and tenacious of its anger: but the genuine Arab would hardly, we suspect, care to invent this, or any other palliation, for what he believed a blameless feeling. Other nations have at least had sayings on the duty of forgiveness, if they have not attained to the practice of that virtue, which, even in Christians, is one of the highest and latest fruits of heaven-sent grace: but the Arabian is unblushing on this score.

2

3

'Cf. M. Renan, p. 1089. Preliminary Discourse, sect. i. 3 Mr. Trench (Hulsean Lectures, p. 155) alludes to a beautiful collection of Indian sayings of this kind. It must be owned that they do not exist in Greek or Roman writers; at least, we can only call to mind the fine exceptions in Cicero, Juvenal, and Homer, Il. ix. 492, et seq. The great speech of Demosthenes is not a real exception. He praises public and national pardons, which, after all, were in great part suggested by motives of policy.

Perhaps in estimating the intensity of clannish rivalry and vengeance among this people, we ought to take into account the circumstance that the Arabs, beyond all other nomadic tribes, have vividly expressed the whole of what they felt. Other people may have harboured sentiments in their breast, and waited till an opportunity arose to express them in action; but the dwellers in Arabia from an early age have prided themselves on the gift of language, and been passionately fond of poetry. Indeed they go so far as to imagine that their own is the only tongue possessing a grammar, and that all other dialects are but rude patois. One of their countrymen, who has travelled in France, the Sheik Rifaa, has been at great pains to remove this prejudice, and inform his brethren that the French language likewise has its own rules and elegances, and an academy to regulate them. But, however much this ludicrous selfsufficiency betrays the spirit of a barbaric race, untaught by civilization even to approximate to a just estimate of the gifts of any nation, beyond themselves, yet the critiques of Oriental scholars seem to justify the Arabs in not thinking meanly of the capacities and refinements of their tongue. Translated into the languages of the West, it must, of course, suffer an almost unappreciable amount of injury. In every language,' says Southey, 'there is a magic of words as untranslatable as 'the Sesame of the Arabian tale-you may re'tain the meaning, but if the words be changed 'the spell is lost. The magic has its effect only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as

1 M. Renan.

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