LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 105 



into Spain, as was probably the art of dying black 

 with indigo. They introduced the use of camels 

 and carrier pigeons into Sicily. The art of enam- 

 elling steel, the system of a national police, the 

 principles of taxation, and the benefits of public 

 libraries, were all derived from the same source. 

 Rhyme, a pleasing characteristic of modern verse, 

 though some have assigned to it a Gothic origin, 

 was doubtless borrowed from the Saracens by the 

 troubadours and Proven9al bards, w^ho derived 

 from the same source the sentiment of honour, 

 the mysticism of love, and the spirit of chivalry, so 

 copiously infused into our early romances. Even 

 Descartes, as Huet has asserted, was indebted to 

 them for his celebrated metaphysical principle, 

 Cogito, ergo sum. To them also belongs the honour 

 of making us acquainted with the manufacture and I 

 use of paper. This invaluable commodity, it is true, 

 had from a very remote period been made in China 

 from the refuse of silk, bamboo, and other sub- 

 stances. About the year 649 the invention was 

 introduced at Samarcand by the Tartars, who used 

 cotton instead of silk ; and when that flourishing 

 city was subdued by the Moslems, the process was 

 conveyed to Mecca, by Yussuf Amru (A. D. 706), 

 where paper was made similar to that now manu- 

 factured, though it does not appear to have come 

 immediately into general use. From Mecca, the 

 art spread through all the Arabian dominions. In 

 Spain, which was renowned for this article from the 

 twelfth century downwards, flax, which grew there 

 abundantly, was substituted for cotton, the latter 

 being scarce and dear. Alphonso X. established 

 paper-mills, and his example passed successively 

 into France, Germany, and England. 



Gunpowder, the discovery of which is generally ^ 

 attributed to Schwartz, a German chymist, was , 

 known to the Arabs at least a century before any 

 traces of it appear in European history. Though it 



