ducts; importers for their own behoof of provisions and
corn. The government was a kind of irregular aristocratic republic,
not without a touch of theocracy. Ten Men of a chief tribe, chosen in
some rough way, were Governors of Mecca, and Keepers of the Caabah.
The Koreish were the chief tribe in Mahomet's time; his own family was
of that tribe. The rest of the Nation, fractioned and cut-asunder by
deserts, lived under similar rude patriarchal governments by one or
several: herdsmen, carriers, traders, generally robbers too; being
oftenest at war one with another, or with all: held together by no
open bond, if it were not this meeting at the Caabah, where all forms
of Arab Idolatry assembled in common adoration;--held mainly by the
_inward_ indissoluble bond of a common blood and language. In this way
had the Arabs lived for long ages, unnoticed by the world: a people of
great qualities, unconsciously waiting for the day when they should
become notable to all the world. Their Idolatries appear to have been
in a tottering state; much was getting into confusion and fermentation
among them. Obscure tidings of the most important Event ever
transacted in this world, the Life and Death of the Divine Man in
Judea, at once the symptom and cause of immeasurable change to all
people in the world, had in the course of centuries reached into
Arabia too; and could not but, of itself, have produced fermentation
there.

* * * * *

It was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the year 570 of
our Era, that the man Mahomet was born. He was of the family of
Hashem, of the Koreish tribe as we said; though poor, connected with
the chief persons of his country.

Almost at his birth he lost his Father; at the age of six years his
Mother too, a woman noted for her beauty, her worth and sense: he fell
to the charge of his Grandfather, an old man, a hundred years old. A
good old man: Mahomet's Father, Abdallah, had been his youngest
favourite son. He saw in Mahomet, with his old life-worn eyes, a
century old, the lost Abdallah come back again, all that was left of
Abdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy greatly; used to say, They
must take care of that beautiful little Boy, nothing in their kindred
was more precious than he. At his death, while the boy was still but
two years old, he left him in charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the
Uncles, as to him that now was head of the house. By this Uncle, a
jus