﻿ON THE ARABS. II 



pect them to be modern compositions on the instabi- 

 lity ol human greatness, and the consequences of ir- 

 reli^ion, illustrated by the example of the Hymyaric 

 princes ; and the same may be suspected of the first 

 poem quoted by Schultens, which he ascribes to an 

 Arab in the age of Solomon. 



The supposed houses of the people called Thamud, 

 are also still to be seen in excavations of rocks ; and, 

 in the time of Tabrizi the Grammarian, a castle was 

 extant in Yemen which bore the name of Aladbat, an 

 old bard and warrior, who first, we are told, formed 

 his army, thence called alkhamis, \njive parts, by which, 

 arrangement he defeated the troops of Himyar in an 

 expedition against Sanaa, 



Of pillars erected by Sesac, after his invasion of 

 Yemen, we find no mention in Arabian histories ; and, 

 perhaps, the story has no more foundation than ano- 

 ther told by the Greeks and adopted by Newton, that 

 the Arabs worshipped Urania, and even Bacchus by 

 name, which, they say, means great in Arabic; but. 

 where they found such a word, we cannot discover: 

 it is true, that Beccah signifies a great and tumultuous 

 crowd, and, in this sense, is one name of the sacred 

 city commonly called Meccah. 



The Cabah, or quadrangular edifice at Meccah, is 

 indisputably so ancient, that its original use and the 

 name of its builder are lost in a cloud of idle tradi- 

 tions. An Arab told me gravely, that it was raised 

 by Abraham, who, as I assured him, was never there : 

 others ascribe it, with more probability, to Ismail, or 

 one of his immediate descendants ; but whether it was 

 built as a place of divine worship, as a fortress, as a 

 sepulchre, or as a monument of the treaty between the 

 old possessors of Arabia and the sons of Kidar, anti- 

 quaries may dispute, but no mortal can determine. 



