d between the hordes of Scythia
and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were collected into
towns, and employed in the labors of trade and agriculture. A part of
their time and industry was still devoted to the management of their
cattle: they mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the
desert; and the Bedoweens derived from their useful intercourse some
supply of their wants, and some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among
the forty-two cities of Arabia, [14] enumerated by Abulfeda, the most
ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of
Saana, [15] and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, [16] were constructed
by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
the prophetic glories of Medina [17] and Mecca, [18] near the Red Sea,
and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles.
The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under the name
of Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its
greatness, which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period,
exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive,
perhaps of superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the choice
of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud
or stone, in a plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the
foot of three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of
the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are remote
from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy miles from the
gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in
Mecca, were conspicuous among the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful
soil refused the labors of agriculture, and their position was favorable
to the enterprises of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance
only of forty miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with
Abyssinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the
disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built,
as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; [19] and from
thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on
rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal
distance, a month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on
the left hand. The former was the winter, the latter t