PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF ARABIA. 95 



summits of the mountains for the use of birds and 

 wild beasts. He discovered, we may presume with- 

 out the assistance of supernatural means, and re- 

 stored, the treasures and other precious relics of the 

 temple, which had lain buried in the Zemzem well 

 since the expulsion of the Jorhamites. The swords 

 he fabricated into an iron gate for the Kaaba ; and 

 this he gilded with the two gazelles, which he caused 

 to be melted down, being the first gold with which 

 that venerable edifice was adorned. 



The national descent of the Arabs from Ishmael 

 is a point which none will venture to dispute who 

 receive the books of JMoses as infallible authority. 

 The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 

 Empire darkly insinuates his suspicions respecting 

 the pedigree of this remarkable people. But the 

 evidence of their derivation is too well established 

 to be shaken by the efforts of the skeptic, who vainly 

 thinks to invalidate the truths of Scripture by sur- 

 rounding them with an air of fiction. That some 

 uncertainty may have crept into their genealogies 

 in the course of nearly thirty centuries will readily 

 be allowed. But it is obvious that an isolated and 

 unsubdued nation like the Arabs have the means of 

 being more exact in the reckoning of their genera- 

 tions than in countries subject to changes and revo- 

 lutions, where the pride of ancestry is necessarily 

 obliterated and forgotten in course of a few succes- 

 sions. The lineage of Mohammed has been embel- 

 lished with fables, and perplexed with anachronisms ; 

 but the veracity of Scripture, or the general inter- 

 ests of history, are in no respect impaired by cir- 

 cumstances so trifling.* 



* Gibbon's Rom. Hist. chap. 1. note. Bmcker has arraigned 

 the Scriptural genealog)- of the Arabs. " Omnem quam Arabes 

 recentiores jactant originem ab Abrahamoincertissimam esse." — 

 Hist. Crit. Philos. torn. i. p. 214. The small number of genera- 

 tions mentioned in the long period of 2500 years is no solid 

 objection. The Arabs did not always reckon from father to son, 



