LITERATURE OP THE ARABS. 415 



but sparingly bestowed her gifts, the senses of man are sharp- 

 ened, and he marks every change in the moving clouds ol 

 the atmosphere around him, tracing in the solitude of the 

 dreary desert, as on the face of the deep and moving sea, every 

 phenomenon through its varied changes, back to the signs by 

 which its coming was proclaimed. The climate of Palestine, 

 especially in the arid and rocky portions of the country, is 

 peculiarly adapted to give rise to such observations. 



The poetic literature of the Hebrews is not deficient in 

 variety of form; for whilst the Hebrew poetry breathes a 

 tone of warlike enthusiasm from Joshua to Samuel, the 

 little book of the gleaner Ruth presents us with a charm- 

 ing and exquisitely simple picture of nature. Gothe,* at 

 the period of his enthusiasm for the East, spoke of it *' as 

 the loveliest specimen of epic and idyl poetry which we 

 possess." 



Even in more recent times, we observe in the earliest 

 literature of the Arabs, a faint reflection of that grand con- 

 templative consideration of nature, which was an original 

 characteristic of the Semitic races. I would here refer to the 

 picturesque delineation of Bedouin desert life, which the gram- 

 marian Asmai has associated with the great name of Antar, 

 and has interwoven with other pre-mahomedan sagas of heroic 

 deeds into one great work. The principal character in this 

 romantic novel is the Antar (of the race of Abs, and son of the 

 princely leader Scheddad and of a black slave,) whose verses 

 have been preserved among the prize poems (Moallakdt], hung 

 up in the Kaaba. The learned English translator Terrick 

 Hamilton, has remarked the biblical tone which breathes 

 through the style of Antar.* Asmai makes the son of the 



pare generally Gesenius, Geschichte der hebr. Sprache und Schrift, s. 

 33 ; and Jobi antiquissimi carminis hebr. natura atque virtutes, ed. 

 Ilgen, p. 28.) The longest and most characteristic description of an 

 animal which we meet with in Job, is that of the crocodile (xl. 25 xli. 

 26), and yet it contains one of the evidences of the writer being him- 

 self a native of Palestine. (Umbreit, s. xli. and 308.) As the river-horse 

 of the Nile and the crocodile were formerly found throughout the whole 

 Delta of the Nile, it is not surprising that the knowledge of such 

 strangely formed animals should have spread into the contiguous region 

 of Palestine. 



* Gothe, in his Commentar zum west-Mtlichen Divan, s. 8. 



