INTRODUCTION.

I.-THE ARABS BEFORE MOHAMMAD.

'Oh, our manhood's prime vigour! No spirit feels waste,
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
Of the plunge in the pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust divine,
And the locust flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!'

-BROWNING, Saul.

BETWEEN Egypt and Assyria, jostled by both, yielding to neither, lay a strange country, unknown save at its marches even to its neighbours, dwelt-in by a people that held itself aloof from all the earth-a people whom the great empires of the ancient world in vain essayed to conquer, against whom the power of Persia, Egypt, Rome, Byzantium was proven impotence, and at whose hands even the superb Alexander, had he lived to test his dream, might for once have learnt the lesson of defeat. Witnessing the struggle and fall of one and another of the great tyrannies of antiquity, yet never entering the arena of the fight;swept on its northern frontier by the conflicting armies of Khusru and Cæsar, but lifting never a hand in either cause; Arabia was at length to issue forth from its silent. mystery, and after baffling for a thousand years the curious gaze of strangers, was at last to draw to itself the fearful eyes of all men. The people of whom almost

nothing before could certainly be asserted but its existence was finally of its own free will to throw aside the veil, to come forth from its fastnesses, and imperiously to bring to its feet the kingdoms of the world.

It is not all Arabia of which I speak. The story to tell has nothing as yet to say to the 'happy' tilled lands of the south, nor to the outlying princedoms of El-Heereh and Ghassán bordering the territories and admitting the suzerainty of Persia and Rome. These lands were not wrapped in mystery: the Himyerite's kingdom in the Yemen, the rule of Zenobia at Palmyra, were familiar to the nations around. But the cradle of Islám was not here.

Along the eastern coast of the Red Sea, sometimes thrusting its spurs of red sandstone and porphyry into the waves, sometimes drawing away and leaving a wide stretch of lowland, runs a rugged range of mountain. One above another, the hills rise from the coast, leaving here and there between them a green valley, where you may see an Arab settlement or a group of Bedawees watering their flocks. Rivers there are none; and the streams that gather from the rainfall are scarcely formed but they sink into the parched earth. Yet beneath the dried-up torrent-beds a rivulet trickles at times, and straightway there spreads a rich oasis dearly prized by the wanderers of the desert. All else is bare and desolate. Climb hill after hill, and the same sight meets the eye-barren mountain-side, dry gravelly plain, and the rare green valleys. At length you have reached the topmost ridge; and you see, not a steep descent, no expected return to the plain, but a vast desert plateau, blank, inhospitable, to all but Arabs unindwellable. You have climbed the Hijáz-the 'barrier' -and are come to the steppes of the Nejd-the 'highland.' In the valleys of this barrier-land are the Holy Cities, Mekka and Medina. Here is the birthplace of Islám: the Arab tribes of the Hijáz and the Nejd were the first disciples of Moḥammad.

One may tell much of a people's character from its

home. Truism as it seems, there is yet a meaning in the
saying that the Arabs are peculiarly the people of Arabia.
Those who have travelled in this wonderful land tell us of
the quickening influence of the air and scene of the desert.
The fresh breath of the plain, the glorious sky, the still
of the wide expanse, trod by no step but your own, looked
upon only by yourself and perhaps yonder solitary eagle
or the wild goat leaping the cliffs you have left behind,
the absolute stillness and aloneness, bring about a strange
sense of delight and exultation, a bounding-up of spirits
held in long restraint, an unknown nimbleness of wit and
limb. The Arabs felt all this and more in their bright
imaginative souls. A few would settle in villages, and
engage in the trade which came through from India
to the West; but such were held in poor repute by the
true Bedawees, who preferred above all things else the free
life of the desert. It is a relief to turn from the hurry
and unrest of modern civilisation, from the never-ending
strife for wealth, for 'position,' for pleasure, even for
knowledge, and look for a moment on the careless life of
the Bedawee. He lived the aimless, satisfied life of some
child; he sought no change; he was supremely content
with the exquisite sense of simple existence; he was
happy because he lived. He wished no more. He
dreaded the dark After-death; he thrust it from his
thoughts as often as it would force itself unwelcome upon
him. Utterly fearless of man and fortune, he took no
thought for the morrow: whatever it brought forth, he
*felt confidently his strength to enjoy or endure; only let
him seize the happiness of to-day while it shall last, and
drain to the dregs the overbrimming cup of his life. He
was ambitious of glory and victory, but it was not an
ambition that clouded his joy. Throughout a life that
was full of energy, of passion, of strong endeavour after
his ideal of desert perfectness, there was yet a restful sense
of satisfied enjoyment, a feeling that life was of a surety
well worth living.

For the Arab had his ideal of life. The true son of the desert must in the old times do more than stretch his limbs contentedly under the shade of the overhanging rock. He must be brave and chivalrous, generous, hospitable; ready to sacrifice himself and his substance for his clan; prompt to help the needy and the traveller; true to his word, and, not least, eloquent in his speech.

Devotion to the clan was the strongest tie the Arab possessed. Though tracing their descent from a common traditional ancestor, the great northern family of Bedawees was split up into numerous clans, owning no central authority, but led, scarcely governed, each by its own chief, who was the most valiant and best-born man in it. The whole clan acted as one being; an injury done to one member was revenged by all, and even a crime committed by a clansman was upheld by the whole brotherhood. Though a small spark would easily light-up war between even friendly clans, it was rarely that those of kin met as enemies. It is told how a clan suffered long and oft-repeated injuries from a kindred clan without one deed of revenge. They are our brothers,' they said; 'perhaps they will return to better feelings; perhaps we shall see them again as they once were.' To be brought to poverty or even to die for the clan, the Arab deemed his duty-his privilege. To add by his prowess or his hospitality or his eloquence to the glory of the clan was his ambition.

1

A mountain 1 we have where dwells he whom we shelter there,
lofty, before whose height the eye falls back blunted :
Deep-based is its root below ground, and overhead there soars
its peak to the stars of heaven whereto no man reaches.
A folk are we who deem it no shame to be slain in fight,

though that be the deeming thereof of Salool and 'Ámir;
Our love of death brings near to us our days of doom,

but their dooms shrink from death and stand far distant. There dies among us no lord a quiet death in his bed,

and never is blood of us poured forth without vengeance.

1 i.e., the glory of the clan.