40 SETTLEMENTS OF THE ARABS. 



CHAPTER III. 



Settlements of the Arabs. 



The rise and triumph of the followers of Mohammed, 

 who in fifty years spread their arms and their creed over 

 half the eastern world, produced an immense change in the 

 social .system of Asia, and a still greater in that of Africa. 

 Their ascendency at first was by no means inauspicious, 

 and portended little of that deep darkness and barbarism in 

 which it has since involved these two continents. After 

 the first violences to which fanaticism had prompted the 

 more ardent converts, the Saracen sway assumed a milder 

 aspect, and their princes cultivated the arts, and even the 

 sciences, with a zeal which had expired among the effemi- 

 nate and corrupted descendants of the Greeks and Romans. 

 Even the remote Mauritania, which seemed doomed to bb 

 the inheritance of a barbarous and nomadic race, was con- 

 verted b}^ them into a civilized empire ; and its capital, Fez, 

 became a distinguished school of learning. Their love of 

 improvement reached even the most distant regions. They 

 introduced the camel, which, though a native of the sandy 

 wastes of Arabia, was equally adapted to the still more im- 

 mense and awful deserts that stretch so wide over Africa. 

 Paths were opened through wilds which had hitherto defied 

 all human efforts to penetrate. An intercourse by means 

 of caravans was formed with the interior countries, to ob- 

 tain a supply of gold and slaves ; and, amid the sanguinary 

 disputes which arose among the descendants of the pro- 

 phet, many, whose ill fortune exposed them to the enmity 

 of successful rivals, sought refuge on the opposite side of 

 the Great Desert. By successive migrations, they not only 

 became numerous in Central Africa, but, from superior skill 

 in the art of war, rose to be the ruling power. They 

 founded several flourishing kingdoms in that part of the 

 continent which Europeans vainly sought to reach, till tney 

 were recently explored by our enterprising countrymen. 

 Of these states Ghana was the most flourishing, forming 

 the great market for that gold in search of which merchants 



