518 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



before Mecca, •which will bring down the introduction of 

 the fmall-pox to the year 522, juft 100 years before the He- 

 .gira, and both Arabian and Abyflinian accounts might be 

 then true. 



The two officers who governed Yemen, and the oppofite 

 coaft Azab, which, as we have above mentioned, belonged 

 to Abyflinia, were filled Naja/bi> as was the king alfo, and 

 both of them were crowned with gold. I am, therefore, 

 perfuaded, this is the reafon of the confufion of names we 

 meet in Arabian manufcripts, that treat of the fovereigns of 

 Yemen. This, moreover, is the foundation of the ftory 

 found in Arabic manufcripts, that JafFar, Mahomet's brother, 

 fled to the Najafhi, who was governor of Yemen, and was 

 kindly treated by him, and kept there till he joined his bro- 

 ther at the campaign of Hybarca. Soon after his great vic- 

 tory over the Bcni Koreifh, at the lafl battle of Beder Hu- 

 nein, Mahomet is faid to have written to the fame Najafhi 

 a letter of thanks, for his kind entertainment of his brother, 

 inviting him (as a reward) to embrace his religion, which 

 the Najafhi is fuppofed to have immediately complied with. 

 Now, all this is in the Arabic books, and all this is true, as 

 far as we can conjecture from the accounts of thofe times, 

 very partially writ by a fet of warrn-headed bigotted zea- 

 lots; fuch as all Arabic authors (hiftorians of the time) un- 

 doubtedly are. The error only lies in the application of 

 this flory to the Najafhi, or king of Abyflinia, fituated far 

 from the fcene of thefe actions, on high cold mountains, 

 very unfavourable to thofe rites, which, in low flat and 

 warm countries, have been temptations to flothful and in- 

 active men to embrace the Mahometan religion. 



A MOST 



