48 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY 



said of it, that we have nothing so lovely in the whole 

 range of epic and idyllic poetry. ( 72 ) 



Even in later times, in the earliest memorials of the 

 literature of the Arabians, we discover a faint reflex of that 

 grandeur of view in the contemplation of nature, which 

 so early distinguished the Semitic race: I allude to the 

 picturesque description of the Bedouin life of the deserts, 

 which the grammarian Asmai has connected with the great 

 name of Antar, and has woven (together with other pre- 

 mohamedan legends of knightly deeds), into a considerable 

 work. The hero of this romantic tale is the same Antar of 

 the tribe of Abs, son of the princely chief Sheddad and of a 

 black slave, whose verses are preserved among the prize 

 poems, (moallakat), which are hung up in the Kaaba. The 

 learned English translator, Terrick Hamilton, has called 



' attention to the biblical tones in the style of Antar. ( 73 ). 

 Asmai makes the son of the desert travel to Constantinople, 

 and thus introduces a picturesque contrast of Greek culture 

 with nomadic simplicity. We should be less surprised at 

 finding that natural descriptions of the surface of the Earth 

 occupy only a very small space in the earliest Arabian 

 poetry, since, according to the remark of an accomplished 



; Arabic scholar, my friend Ereytag of Bonn, narratives of 

 deeds of arms, and praises of hospitality and of fidelity in 

 love, are its principal themes, and since scarcely any, if any, 

 of its writers were natives of Arabia Eelix. The dreary 

 uniformity of sandy deserts or grassy plains is ill fitted to 

 awaken the love of nature, excepting in rare instances and 

 in minds of a peculiar cast. 



\ "Where the earth is unadorned by forests, the imagination, 

 \as we have already remarked, is the more occupied by the 



