250 ARABIA. 



determined to migrate to Carthage, and had already 

 packed up, when the Patriarch persuaded him to change 

 his mind. He obtained peace from Persia by sending 

 earth and water in the old style, and by promising 

 to pay as tribute a thousand talents of gold, a thousand 

 talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand 

 horses, and a thousand virgins. But instead of col- 

 lecting these commodities he collected an army, and 

 suddenly dashed into the heart of Persia. Chosroes 

 recalled his troops from the newly conquered lands, 

 but was defeated by the Greeks, and was in his turn 

 compelled to sue for ignominious peace. In the midst 

 of the triumphs which Heraclius celebrated at Con- 

 stantinople and Jerusalem, an obscure town on the 

 confines of Syria was pillaged by a band of Arab 

 horsemen, who cut in pieces some troops which advanced 

 to its relief. This appeared a trifling event, but it 

 was the commencement of a mighty revolution. In 

 the last eight years of his reign Heraclius lost to the 

 Saracens the provinces which be had recovered from 

 the Persians. 



The peninsula of Arabia is almost as large as 

 Hindostan, but does not contain a single navigable 

 river. It is for the most part a sterile table-land 

 furrowed by channels which in winter roar with violent 

 and muddy streams, and which in summer are com- 

 pletely dry. In these stream-beds at a little depth 

 below the surface there is sometimes a stratum of 

 water which, breaking out here and there into springs, 

 creates a habitable island in the waste. Such a fruitful 

 wadi or oasis is sometimes extensive enough to form a 

 town : and each town is in itself a kingdom. This 

 stony green-spotted land was divided into Arabia 

 Petrsea on the north, and Arabia Deserta on the south. 



