THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 523 



Thf Arabs were a people who lived in a country, for the 

 molt part, defert ; their dwellings were tents, and their prin- 

 cipal occupation feeding and breeding cattle, and they mar- 

 ried with their own family. The language therefore of fuch 

 a people mould be very poor ; there is no variety of images 

 in their whole country. They were always bad poets, as 

 their works will teflify ; and if, contrary to the general rule, 

 the language of Arabia Deferta became a copious one, it 

 mull have been by the mixture of fo many nations meet- 

 ing and trading at Mecca. It muft, at the fame time, have 

 been the mofl corrupt, where there was the greateft con* 

 courfe of ffrangers, and this was certainly among the Beni 

 Koreifh at the Caba. When, therefore, I hear people praif- 

 ing the Koran for the purity of its ftyle, it puts me in mind 

 of the old man in the comedy, whofe reafon for loving his 

 nephew was, that he could read Greek ; and being afked 

 if he underltood the Greek fo read, he anfwered, Not a word 

 of it, but the rumbling of the found pleafed him. 



The war that had diffracted all Arabia, firft between the 

 Greeks and Perfians, then between Mahomet and the ' Arabs,in 

 fupport of his divine million, had very much hurt the trade 

 carried on by univerfal confent at the Temple of Mecca* 

 Caravans, when they dared venture out, were furprifed up- 

 on every road, by the partizans of one fide or the other. Both 

 merchants and trade had taken their departure to the fouth- 

 ward, and eflablifhed themfelves fouth of the Arabian Gulf, 

 in places which (in ancient times) had been the markets 

 for commerce, and the rendezvous of merchants. Azab, or 

 Saba, was rebuilt ; alfo Raheeta, Zeyla, Tajoura, Soomaal, in 

 the Arabian Gulf, and a number of other towns on the In- 

 dian Ocean. The conquefl of the Abymnian territories in 



3 U 2 Arabia 



