ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. Ill 



gF trust and authority. His own subjects, however, 

 opposed the introduction of a strange religion, and 

 resolved no longer to acknowledge as their sove- 

 reign a prince who had deserted the faith of his an- 

 cestors. The dispute was at length adjusted by an 

 appeal to a subterraneous fire, in a cavern near Sa- 

 naa, to which the people had been accustomed from 

 time immemorial to submit all nice points of differ- 

 ence, wherein it was found impossible by ordinary 

 means to discriminate right from wrong, or truth 

 from falsehood. This infallible ordeal, as was to be 

 expected, decided in favour of the Jewish rabbis, 

 who entered the grotto with portions of their Scrip- 

 tures suspended from their necks, and returned un- 

 hurt by the flames ; while the idols of Yemen, and 

 all those by whom they were carried, were instantly 

 consumed to ashes. In consequence of this awful 

 manifestation, the whole inhabitants, according to 

 the Arabian legends, embraced the Law of Moses. 



The history of this prince, the last of the Tobbaas, 

 is very contradictory, many of his achievements 

 being ascribed to Asaad-Abucarb, who is by some 

 called the second or middle Tobbaa. His death, 

 and the minority of his three sons, gave rise to 

 scenes of turbulence and usurpation, that distracted 

 the kingdom for many years. 



The reigns of Dushauater and his successor were 

 marked with infamy, and ended in revolution. The 

 former, a tyrant noted for his vices and barbarities, 

 was not of the royal lineage, but had seized the 

 throne in the absence of Hassan H., then on an 

 expedition to Syria. The usurper had succeedeffTn 

 establishing his authority, by cutting off all whose 

 hereditary claims stood in his way. His loathsome 

 propensities made his govei-nment as odious as it 

 was cruel. It was his practice to allure tlie sons of 

 the nobility to his palace at Sanaa, and after sub- 

 jecting them to the most brutal treatment, to hurl 

 them from an upper window in the presence of his 



