SOCIAL STATE OF THE ARABS. 347 



tribes on the northern frontiers, in the days of the 

 Hebrew judges, are represented as coming up and 

 encamping against Israel, with their camels, their 

 cattle, and their tents, like grasshoppers for multi- 

 tude. The plains of Hauran are strown with the 

 ruins of towns and villages ; and many places which 

 are susceptible of culture, and must once have been 

 thickly peopled, are overgrown with wild herbage. 

 It may even be doubted whether these regions have 

 always existed in the same state of hopeless sterility 

 which they at present exhibit. Numbers of petrified 

 trunks have been discovered in desolate tracts, 

 where neither tree nor shrub has grow^n within the 

 remembrance of history ; but of the same species — 

 the date and the sycamore — which still abound in 

 the more fertile parts of the same district. These 

 facts seem to demonstrate a more flourishing con- 

 dition of soil and population in certain places than 

 are now witnessed by modern travellers, but at a 

 period of which antiquity is silent. 



In casting a retrospective view over the manners 

 and habits of the Arabs, we are struck with the con- 

 tradictory features which they discover, both in their 

 social and moral character. Independently of the 

 grand distinction between natives and settlers, shep- 

 herds and citizens, which naturally creates a differ- 

 ence in their modes of life, other anomalous circum- 

 stances are found to exist among the pure aboriginal 

 tribes. The spirit of patriotism among them is strong 

 and universal, yet they have no home but the path- 

 less waste and wretched tent. They are a nation 

 of brothers, yet live continually at war ; jealous of 

 their honour, and at the same time addicted to the 

 meanest vices. Though fierce and sanguinary in 

 their temper, they are not strangers to the virtues 

 of pity and gratitude. They are faithful where 

 they pledge their word, and charitable to the needy ; 

 but they are covetous, and by no means of good 

 faith in pecuniary transactions. 



