374 NATURAL 1IIST0RY OF 



still breed white asses, as of old, and appear themselves like 

 low caste Hindoos. Of this ancient capital there are still ris- 

 ible fragments of pillars, (ice; and it may be remarked that 

 Zobeir is more likely derived from a Sanscrit or Scythic root, 

 denoting- sorcery, than from an Arab chief of that aame, who is 

 said to have fallen near this place, w1k.ii Ayesha, widow of 

 Mahommed, was defeated by Ali, in tin- y> ar 656 of our era. 



Another source of the Arabian people was derived from the 

 Jewish clans, which, after the massacre in Persia, had re- 

 tired to the desert, and become formidable by their numbers 

 and warlike propensities. They had apostatized, and united 

 with the followers of Mahommed, and greatly strengthened 

 his forces, notwithstanding that other clans of Hebrews, who 

 retained the faith of their fathers, were expelled by him. 

 Long before that period they had been forced to disperse, in 

 consequence of the successful inroad of a Roman army under 

 CElius Gallus, who is said to have burst the colossal stone em- 

 bankment raised to sustain the waters of the Mareb, a very 

 extensive reservoir, serving to irrigate a great district of land. 

 The event is known by the name of the deluge of El Maureb; 

 for when the waters escaped, the whole cultivated surface was 

 swept away, and the wretchedness it produced was among the 

 original causes of the subsequent expansion of the Arabian 

 power, because forced emigrations led colonies beyond the 

 Shat-ul-Arab, perhaps, even then, so far to the east as the bank 

 of the Indus, producing constant hostilities against the Par- 

 tisans, while other tribes, pressed to the borders of Kourdistan, 

 equally embroiled them with the Byzantine Romans, at a 

 period when the Arabian horse first began to acquire its supe- 

 rior qualities. Ages before that time the Phoenician traders, 

 who were masters in the Persian Gulf and the islands of Bah- 

 rein, had no doubt stimulated the Arabs' love of adventure, and 

 from pirates turned their attention to legitimate trade, ulti- 

 mately becoming the successors of the parents of commercial 

 industry. They traded as they had roved to Madagascar ind 



