416 COSMOS. 



desert go to Constantinople ; and thus a picturesque contrast 

 of Greek culture and nomadic ruggedness is introduced. The 

 small space occupied in the earliest Arabic poems by natural 

 delineations of the country, will excite but little surprise when 

 we remember, as has been remarked by my friend Freytag 

 of Bonn, who is so celebrated for his knowledge of this branch 

 of literature, that the principal subjects of these poems are 

 narrations of deeds of arms and praise of hospitality and 

 fidelity, and that scarcely any of the bards were natives of 

 Arabia-Felix. A wearying uniformity of grassy plains and 

 sandy deserts could not excite a love of nature, except under 

 peculiar and rare conditions of mind. 



Where the soil is not adorned by woods and forests, the 

 phenomena of the atmosphere, as winds, storms, and the long, 

 wished- for rain, occupy the mind more strongly, as we have 

 already remarked. For the sake of referring to a natural 

 image of this kind in the Arabian poets, I would especially 

 notice Antar's Moallakat, which describes the meadows ren- 

 dered fruitful by rain, and visited by swarms of buzzing 

 insects ; f the fine description of storms in Amru'l Kais, and 

 in the 7th book of the celebrated Hamasa ; J and, lastly, the 

 picture in the Nalegha Dhobyani of the rising of the Eu- 

 phrates, when its waves bear in their course masses of reeds 

 and trunks of trees. The 8th book of Hamasa, inscribed 

 " Travel and Sleepiness," naturally attracted my special atten- 



* A ntar, a Bedouin romance, translated from the Arabic by Terrick 

 Hamilton, vol. i. p. xxvi.; Hammer, in the Wiener Jahrbuchern der 

 Litieratur, bd. vi. 1819, s. 229; Rosenmiiller, in the Charakteren dcr 

 vornehmsten Dichter aller Nationen, bd. v. (1798) s. 251. 



t Antara cum schol. Sunsenii, ed. Menil., 1816, v. 15. 



% Ammdkelsi Moallakat, ed. E G. Hengstenberg, 1823; Hamasa, ed 

 Freytag, P. i. 1828, lib. vii. p. 785. Compare also the pleasing work, 

 entitled Amrilkais, the Poet and King, translated by Fr. Eiickert. 

 1843, pp. 29 and 62, where southern showers of rain are twice described 

 with exceeding truth to nature. The royal poet visited the court of the 

 Emperor Justinian, several years before the birth of Mohammed, to seek 

 aid against his enemies. See Le Divan d'Amro 'Heats, accompagne 

 d'urie traduction par le Baron Mac Quckin de Slane, 1837, p. 111. 



Nabeghah Dhobyani, in Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestom. arabe, 1806, t. 

 iii. p. 47. On the early Arabian literature generally, see Weil's Die poet. 

 Litteratur der Araber vor Mohammed, 1837, s. 15 and 90, as well as 

 Freytag's Darstellung der arabLchen Verskunst, 1830, s. 372-392. We 



