nded, and in which nine pitched battles were fought. During the
same period, he was besieged in Medina, by the implacable Koreish; but,
by his own skill, and the bravery of his troops, he repelled all their
attacks. In the sixth year of the Hegira, with 1,400 men, he meditated
what he asserted to be a peaceful pilgrimage to the holy temple of
Mecca. Entrance into the city being refused by the people, the prophet,
in his anger, determined to force his way. At this critical juncture an
ambassador was despatched from Mecca to demand a peace. The policy of
Mahomet induced him to lay aside his determination of assaulting his
native city, and to accept the peaceful offers of his countrymen. A
truce of ten years was consequently concluded between the prophet and
the Koreish.

Two years had hardly elapsed when Mahomet accused the people of Mecca of
a breach of their engagement. When a man is really desirous of
quarrelling, a pretext is never wanting. He was now strong, and his
enemies were weak. His superstitious reverence for the city of his
nativity, and for the temple it contained, served also to influence his
determination for war. The time since the concluding of the truce had
been skilfully employed in seducing the adherents of the Koreish, and
converting to his religion the chief citizens of Mecca. With an army of
10,000 men he marched to besiege it, and no sooner did he appear before
the walls than the city surrendered at discretion.

[Illustration: The Muezzin.]

The religion of Mahomet may be considered now to have been permanently
settled. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreish was the signal for the
submission of the rest of Arabia. The events of the prophet's after-life
cease, therefore, to possess an interest for a Western reader. They
were, for the most part, merely expeditions undertaken for the purpose
of reducing the petty tribes who still resisted his authority, and were
all of them eventually successful. The influence and religion of Mahomet
continued rapidly to extend; his difficulties were over; and the hour of
his prosperity has nothing to instruct or to amuse the general reader.
Between the taking of Mecca and the period of his death, not more than
three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of
Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and
Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty
kingdoms; had tried his arms against the undis