OF THE UNIVERSE. THE ARABIANS. 205 



of southern Asia, and its proximity to Egypt and to a 

 European sea render its geographical position a very favour- 

 able one, both politically and commercially. In the central 

 parts of the Arabian peninsula lived the population of the 

 Hedjaz, a noble and powerful race, uninformed but not 

 rude, imaginative, and yet devoted to the careful observa- 

 tion of all the phenomena presenting themselves to their 

 eyes in the open face of nature, on the ever clear vault of 

 heaven or on the surface of the earth. After this race 

 had lived for thousands of years almost without contact with 

 the rest of the world, and leading for the most part a 

 nomadic life, they suddenly broke forth, became polished 

 and informed by mental contact with the inhabitants of the 

 ancient seats of cultivation, and subdued, proselytised, and 

 ruled over nations from the Pillars of Hercules to the Indus 

 as far as the point where the Bolor chain intersects that of 

 the Hindoo Coosh. Even from the middle of .the ninth 

 century they maintained commercial relations at once with the 

 northern countries of Europe and with Madagascar, with East 

 Africa, India and China ; they diffused their language, their 

 coins, and the Indian system of numbers, and founded a 

 powerful combination of countries held together by the ties 

 of a common religious faith. It often happened that great 

 provinces were only temporarily overrun. The swarming 

 troop, threatened by the natives, encamped, according to a 

 comparison of their native poets, " like groups of clouds 

 which are soon scattered anew by the wind/' No national 

 movement ever offered more animated phenomena ; and the 

 mind-repressing spirit which appears to be inherent in Islam, 

 has manifested itself, on the whole, far less under the Ara- 

 bian empire than among the Turkish races. Eeligious per- 



