who solicited their aid, "you have been always conspicuous by
your valor. You conquered the Persian king, and scattered his forces,
till you had taken possession of his inheritance." This mighty conquest
was achieved by the battles of Jalula and Nehavend. After the loss of
the former, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and
despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had descended
with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of the nation
survived that of the monarch: among the hills to the south of Ecbatana
or Hamadan, one hundred and fifty thousand Persians made a third and
final stand for their religion and country; and the decisive battle of
Nehavend was styled by the Arabs the victory of victories. If it be true
that the flying general of the Persians was stopped and overtaken in a
crowd of mules and camels laden with honey, the incident, however slight
and singular, will denote the luxurious impediments of an Oriental army.
[29]

[Footnote 24: Mente vix potest numerove comprehendi quanta spolia
nostris cesserint. Abulfeda, p. 69. Yet I still suspect, that the
extravagant numbers of Elmacin may be the error, not of the text, but of
the version. The best translators from the Greek, for instance, I find
to be very poor arithmeticians. * Note: Ockley (Hist. of Saracens,
vol. i. p. 230) translates in the same manner three thousand million of
ducats. See Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 462; who
makes this innocent doubt of Gibbon, in which, is to the amount of
the plunder, I venture to concur, a grave charge of inaccuracy and
disrespect to the memory of Erpenius. The Persian authorities of
Price (p. 122) make the booty worth three hundred and thirty millions
sterling!--M]

[Footnote 25: The camphire-tree grows in China and Japan; but many
hundred weight of those meaner sorts are exchanged for a single pound of
the more precious gum of Borneo and Sumatra, (Raynal, Hist. Philosoph.
tom. i. p. 362-365. Dictionnaire d'Hist. Naturelle par Bomare Miller's
Gardener's Dictionary.) These may be the islands of the first climate
from whence the Arabians imported their camphire (Geograph. Nub. p. 34,
35. D'Herbelot, p. 232.)]

[Footnote 251: Compare Price, p. 122.--M.]

[Footnote 26: See Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 376, 377. I may
credit the fact, without believing the prophecy.]

[Footnote 27: The most considerable ruins of Assyria are the tower of
Belus, at Babylon, a