The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1655]
[Footnote 10: See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2, 5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d'Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam, 1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 327 - 344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343 - 385,) the last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]
[Footnote 11: Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M. de Buffon.]
[Footnote 12: For the Arabian horses, see D'Arvieux (p. 159 - 173) and Niebuhr, (p. 142 - 144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe, the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too much body and too little spirit, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armor]
[Footnote 13: Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow, and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 404.)]
Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities of Arabia, ^14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, ^15 and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, ^16 were constructed by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina ^17 and Mecca, ^18 near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; ^19 and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca