left hand. The
former was the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans;
and their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the
tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of
Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels of the
Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics; a supply of
corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus;
the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and riches in the streets of
Mecca; and the noblest of her sons united the love of arms with the
profession of merchandise.

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise
among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy transform this
singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favor of the posterity
of Ismael. Some exceptions, that can neither be dismissed nor eluded,
render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous; the
kingdom of Yemen has been successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the
Persians, the sultans of Egypt, and the Turks; the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman
province of Arabia embraced the peculiar wilderness in which Ismael and
his sons must have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren.
Yet these exceptions are temporary or local; the body of the nation has
escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris
and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of
Arabia; the present sovereign of the Turks may exercise a shadow of
jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a
people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The
obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the character and
country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, their intrepid valor had
been severely felt by their neighbors in offensive and defensive war.
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in
the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and
camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe; but the martial youth,
under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to
practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long
memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity
and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent, and to
maintain their inheritance.