OF THE ANCIENT ARABS. 



169 



country. When the Roman power yielded m its 

 turn to the victorious Saracens, the trade of the 

 East reverted to the Arabs ; and with them it might 

 have still remained had no Gama arisen to double 

 the Cape of Storms, and effect a total revolution in 

 the whole commercial system of the world. The 

 recent intercourse with Europe has introduced stiU 

 jrreater changes; but when the Portuguese first 

 visited the Arabian seas, they found the coimtry and 

 the commerce nearly in the same state as had been 

 described by the Greeks and Romans 1500 years 



before. . , , -x i. 



The national character of the inhabitants was 

 little affected by their external connexions. Their 

 love of independence was attended with certain 

 baneful effects on society. It engendered pride, 

 and nursed into action those tendencies to war, 

 cruelty, and rapine which they inherited from na- 

 ture Cherishing an unsocial disdain towards all 

 mankind, their hostiUties recognised no distinctions; 

 their only rule Avas their own advantage ; and when- 

 ever this was concerned, they attacked friends and 

 foes without scruple or provocation. As they made 

 no difference between war and pillage, robbery by 

 armed force was confounded with the rights of con- 

 quest. The plundering of a solitary traveller was 

 in their eyes as much a military exploit as the sack- 

 ing of a town or the reduction of a province. 1 he 

 poverty of their own laud was with them an honoiu:- 

 able excuse for reUeving their wants at the expense 

 of their wealthier neighbours. They alleged, that 

 in the division of the earth the rich and fertile parts 

 .were assigned to the other branches of the human 

 family; and that the descendants of the outlaw, 

 " whose hand was to be against every man," might 

 recover by force the hereditary portion of which 

 they had been unjustly deprived. Though the pos- 

 terity of Isaac and Abraham, strictly speaking, were 

 the only people from whom they should have sought 

 VoL.'l.— P 



