74 LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 



ber of these diverting legends had no more durable 

 tablet than the memory of itinerating story-tellers. 

 Crowds of both sexes in every region of the Mo- 

 hammedan world still earn their livelihood by their 

 wonderful talent for recital ; and they never fail to 

 attract an audience ; for the indolent natives of Tur- 

 ke}'-, Persia, and India willingly bury their present 

 cares in the pleasing dreams of the imagination. 

 The Africans, in the midst of their deserts, assem- 

 ble nightly round the blazing fire in their tents, ajid 

 learn to forget their own hardships and fatigues in 

 the captivating narrative of ideal adventures. The 

 public squares of the cities in the Levant abound 

 with these wandering reciters, and their assistance 

 is called in to fill up the heavy hours of the palace 

 and the seraglio. Their art is even prescribed as a 

 substitute for medicine ; and physicians not unfre- 

 quently recommend them to their patients in order 

 to sooth pain, to calm the agitated spirits, or pro- 

 duce sleep after long watchfulness. 



Of their astonishing powers of memory we find 

 an instance recorded in Hamad of Damascus, known 

 by the title of Arawiyah, or the Narrator, one of the 

 literary suite of the second Walid, and reckoned the 

 most conversant of men in the history, poetry, 

 genealogy, and language of the Arabs. " Com- 

 mander of the Faithful," he replied to the caliph, 

 " I can relate the works of every poet with which 

 you are acquainted, or have heard of; I can, more- 

 over, relate the works of those with whom you are 

 not acquainted ; and no one can repeat to me a 

 poem, ancient or modern, but I can tell to which of 

 the two classes it belongs. I will undertake to repeat 

 to you, for every letter of the alphabet, 100 poems 

 of the larger description, besides small pieces, all 

 made before the introduction of Mohammedanism, 

 independently of the poetry that has appeared since 

 that ere.'' In proof that this was no idle boast, 

 Hamad continued to relate tiU the caliph grew 



