d at the head of ten thousand horse.

Yet an essential difference may be found 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, enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient
and populous were situate in the _happy_ Yemen: the towers of Saana, and
the marvellous reservoir of Merab, were constructed by the kings of
the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic
glories of Medina and Mecca, 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; 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