﻿12 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE: 



It is thought by Reland to have been the mansion of 

 some ancient 'patriarchy and revered on that account hy 

 his posterity ; but the room in which we now are as- 

 sembled, would contain the whole Arabian edifice ; 

 and, if it were large enough for the dwelling-house of 

 a patriarchal family, it would seem ill adapted to the 

 pastoral manners of the Kedarites. A Persian author 

 insists, that the true name of Meccah is Mahcadah, or 

 the Temple of the Moon ; but, although we may smile 

 at his etymology, we cannot but think it probable that 

 the Cahah was originally designed for religious pur- 

 poses. Three couplets are cited in an Arabic history 

 of this building, which, from their extreme simpli- 

 city, have less appearance of imposture than other 

 verses of the same kind : they are ascribed to Asad, 

 a Tobba, or king by succession, who is generally allowed 

 to have reigned in Yemen an hundred and twenty-eight 

 years before Christ's birth, and they commemorate, 

 without any poetical imagery, the magnificence of the 

 prince in covering the holy temple with stripped cloth 

 and fine linen, and in making keys for its gate. This 

 temple, however, the sanctity of which was restored 

 by Muhammed, had been strangely profaned at the time 

 of his birth, when it was usual to decorate its walls 

 with poems on all subjects, and often on the triumphs 

 of Arabian gallantry and the praises of Grecian wine, 

 which the merchants of Syria brought for sale into the 

 deserts. 



From the want of materials on the subject of Arabian 

 antiquity, we find it very difficult to fix the chronolo- 

 gy of the Ismailites with accuracy beyond the time of 

 Adrian, from whom' the imposture was descended in 

 the twenty-first degree ; and, although we have gene- 

 alogies of Alkarnah and other Himyaric bards as high 

 as the thirtieth degree, or for a period of nine hundred 

 years at least, yet we can hardly depend on them so 

 far, as to establish a complete chronological system. 



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