en hundred battles [36] are recorded by
tradition: hostility was imbittered with the rancor of civil faction;
and the recital, in prose or verse, of an obsolete feud, was sufficient
to rekindle the same passions among the descendants of the hostile
tribes. In private life every man, at least every family, was the judge
and avenger of his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which
weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the
quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their beards,
is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be
expiated only by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient
inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of
revenge. A fine or compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians
of every age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to
accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of
retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head
of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the guilty person, and
transfers the penalty to the best and most considerable of the race
by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are
exposed, in their turn, to the danger of reprisals, the interest and
principal of the bloody debt are accumulated: the individuals of
either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may
sometimes elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled.
[37] This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been
moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in every
private encounter some decent equality of age and strength, of numbers
and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of four, months, was
observed by the Arabs before the time of Mahomet, during which their
swords were religiously sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility;
and this partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of
anarchy and warfare. [38]

[Footnote 35: Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall of
1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis, (Diodor.
Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos, the shepherd
kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt, (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.
98-163) &c.) * Note: This origin of the Hycsos, though probable, is
by no means so certain here is some reason for supposing them
Scythians.--M]

[Footnote 36: Or, accor