ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 117 



this supernatural catastrophe perished in the desert. 

 Abraha alone reached Sanaa, " quaking- like a 

 chicken," where he died soon after of a loathsome 

 disease. The terrified citizens of Mecca returned 

 from their hills. Abdolmotalleb and the Koreish 

 were regarded with double veneration, and invested 

 with the title of the Holy Family. 



The War of the Elephant is a well-kno\vn epoch 

 in ]Mohammedan history, as it happened in the year 

 of the Prophefs birth. The Koran in a short chap- 

 ter (cv.) relates this judicial defeat of "The Mas- 

 ters of the Elephant"' by a miraculous fiock of birds, 

 " which cast down upon them stones of baked clay." 

 It is difficult to comprehend how a legend so ridicu- 

 lous, and happening at a period so well ascertained, 

 could have gained the slightest degree of credit. 

 Dean Prideaux considers the story a fiction of Mo- 

 hammed's own coining, to terrify the Christian 

 Arabs into his religion, and augment the national 

 reverence for the Kaaba. Father Maracci alleges 

 the whole either to be a fable, or a feat of some evil 

 spirit, such as overthrew Brennus and his army when 

 marching to attack the temple of Apollo at Delphi. 

 Stripped of its preternatural ab.surdities, this memo- 

 rable event will resolve itself simply into a religious 

 expedition against Mecca ; and the discomfiture of 

 the Abyssinians, as Gibbon remarks, maj' be attrib- 

 uted either to the want of provisions, or to the valour 

 of the Koreish, without the assistance of a celestial 

 shower of stones. 



Abraha w-as succeeded by his sons, Yacsum and 

 Masruk. Their debaucheries and oppressions alien- 

 ated the loyalty of the Arabs, and raised a competi- 

 tor in the person of Seiph, a descendant of the last 

 of the Hamyarite princes. He applied for aid to 

 Khoosroo (Chosroes), king of Persia, whose wealth 

 and magnificence were then unrivalled in the East, 

 and have been celebrated by the Persian \^Titers in 

 many a romantic volume. "The Arabian foimd him 



