Their domestic feuds are suspended on the
approach of a common enemy; and in their last hostilities against the
Turks, the caravan of Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore
thousand of the confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of
victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their
horses and camels, who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of
four or five hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret
waters of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops
are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the heart
of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the Bedoweens are not
only the safeguards of their own freedom, but the barriers also of the
happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from war, are enervated by the
luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of Augustus melted away
in disease and lassitude; and it is only by a naval power that the
reduction of Yemen has been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected
his holy standard, that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the mountains; and
the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his distant country and
his unfortunate master. The historians of the age of Justinian represent
the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or
affection in the long quarrel of the East: the tribe of _Gassan_ was
allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory: the princes of _Hira_ were
permitted to form a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins
of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity
capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving
barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to
see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia.
From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes were confounded by the
Greeks and Latins, under the general appellation of Saracens, a name
which every Christian mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and
abhorrence.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.--Part II.

The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national
independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in some
degree, the benefits of societ