ght to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the _sandy_, the _stony_, and the _happy_, so familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and it
is singular enough, that a country, whose language and inhabitants have
ever been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient
geography. The maritime districts of _Bahrein_ and _Oman_ are opposite
to the realm of Persia. The kingdom of _Yemen_ displays the limits, or
at least the situation, of Arabia Felix: the name of _Neged_ is extended
over the inland space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the
province of _Hejaz_ along the coast of the Red Sea.

The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence;
and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the
subjects of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the
Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the _Icthyophagi_,
or fish eaters, continued to wander in quest of their precarious food.
In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of
society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and the
helpless savage was restrained from multiplying his race by the wants
and pursuits which confined his existence to the narrow margin of the
seacoast. But in an early period of antiquity the great body of the
Arabs had emerged from this scene of misery; and as the naked wilderness
could not maintain a people of hunters, they rose at once to the more
secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life
is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
portrait of the modern _Bedoweens_, we may trace the features of their
ancestors, who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under similar
tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep, to the same
springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and our wealth
is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals; and the Arabian
shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful friend and
a laborious slave. Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is
the genuine and original country of the _horse_; the climate most
propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness,
of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and t