122 
The Bedouin women, or those that live in the inte- 
rior of the country, and appear to be of the highest 
rank, have for their only costume a large shift of blue 
stuff; a cloth of a coquelicot colour upon their faces; a 
very large cloak, or black veil of wool; some rings, 
bracelets, and a few other jewels. 
It is evident, then, that a people whose wants are 
so confined cannot supply a very great stimulus to 
commerce, so long as civilization is not introduced 
among them; a thing very difficult to accomplish in a 
land of deserts, that in its nature seems condemned to 
superstition, ignorance, and misery. If it has ever been 
able to shake off this state of brutishness for a short 
time, it has owed the momentary impulse to the ef- 
fervescence of religious zeal; but this degree of ex- 
citement could not last long; and when it cooled, the 
country was rapidly replunged into its former state of 
barbarity and poverty, which appears to be its inse- 
parable lot. 
Historians celebrate the nobleness of the Arabian 
nation, which never bent its head to the yoke of the 
Greeks and Romans. This is a false inference, drawn 
from events. If Arabia has had the happiness to pre- 
serve itself free from all foreign domination, it has 
been more owing to the nature of the country than to 
the character of its inhabitants. Where was the captain 
to be found who would sacrifice his men and money 
to conquer vast deserts and people who could not be 
formed into a political body, but when religious ideas 
united their desires; whom no other bond could keep 
together, on account of the insulated situation of each 
tribe, the aridity of a soil that defies culture, and the 
consequent want of those social comforts which other 
nations enjoy. 
