he Sarazenes, ruled from the Himalayas
to the Pyrenees, and from the Indies to the Atlantic Ocean. But
Christianity and its higher spiritual and material perfection, yes
even its intolerance, which its high morality should have made
impossible, drove the Arabs back again from Europe. The rude force of
the Turks undermined their rule in the Orient, and for the second time
the children of Ishmael saw themselves driven out into the desert.

Those Arabs who had reached a higher state of culture, and had settled
down to the pursuit of agriculture, commerce, or industry, had to sink
the lower before the oppression of a rule of iron. The artificial
dealings of a government trying to imitate European methods, and the
assistance of the Franks, the introduction of the census and of taxes,
of duties and monopolies, standing armies and conscriptions, the
barter of offices and the leasing of custom houses, slavery and the
vices of the east, together with the energy, indomitable will and
marvelous luck of Mehmet Ali, all combined in one grand achievement--I
mean the monumental tyranny, never yet equalled, under which the
fellahs today are groaning in Egypt and the Arabs in Syria, and under
which a whole country has been transformed into a private domain, and
a whole people into personal slaves.

By far the greater part of the Arabic nation, however, had remained
true to its old customs, and no despotism could get hold of them. The
extent of the Asiatic and African deserts, their fiery sky and parched
soil, and the poverty of the inhabitants have ever been the
protection of the Arabs. The rule of the Persians, the Romans, and the
Greeks was never more than partial, and often existed only in name.
The Bedouin today, like his fathers of old, is still living the life
of want, care, and independence, roving through the same steppes as
they, and watering his herds from the same wells as they did in the
time of Moses or of Mahomet.

The oldest descriptions of the Arabs fit the Bedouins of our day.
Unquenchable feuds are still dividing the several tribes, the
possession of a pasturing place or of a well still determines the
welfare of many families, and blood-feuds and hospitality still are
the vices and virtues of this people of nature. Wherever along their
frontiers the Arabs come in contact with foreign nations war is the
result. The children of Abraham divided among themselves the rich and
fertile countries, while Ishmael and his trib