SOCIAL STATE OF THE ARABS. 389 



judges, are represented as coming up and encamping 

 against Israel, with their camels, their cattle, and 

 their tents, like grashoppers for multitude. The 

 plains of Hauran are strewn with the ruins of towns 

 and villages ; and many places which are suscep- 

 tible of culture, and must once have been thickly 

 peopled, are overgrown with wild herbage. It may 

 even be doubted whether these regions have al- 

 ways existed in the same state of hopeless sterility 

 which they at present exhibit. Numbers of pe- 

 trified trunks have been discovered in desolate 

 tracts, where neither tree nor shrub has grown with- 

 in 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 

 condition 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 

 contradictory features which they discover, both in 

 their social and moral character. Independently of 

 the grand distinction between natives and settlers, 

 shepherds and citizens, which naturally creates a 

 difference in their modes of life, other anomalous 

 circumstances are found to exist among the pure ab- 

 original tribes. The spirit of patriotism among them 

 is strong and universal, yet they have no home but 

 the pathless waste and wretched tent. They are 

 a nation of brothers, yet live continually at war ; 

 jealous of their honour, and at the same time ad- 

 dicted to the meanest vices. Though fierce and 

 sanguinary in their temper, they are not strangers 

 to the virtues of pity and gratitude. They are 



