minds, in consequence of their national habits, were little susceptible of the images of abstract enjoyment. The notions of a purely intellectual or spiritual happiness pertain to a more cultivated people. The scorching heat of those tropical regions, the aridness of the soil, and the consequent lack of a verdant vegetation, made it natural to the Arabs, and other oriental nations, to conceive of the most exquisite scenes of pleasure under the images of rivers of water, cooling drinks, flowery gardens, shaded bowers, and luscious fruits. The magnificence also of many of the Eastern buildings, their temples and palaces, with the sumptuousness of their dresses, the pomp of processions, and the splendour of courts, would all tend to mingle in their ideas of the highest state of enjoyment an abundance of gold and silver and precious stones—treasures for which the East has been famed from time immemorial. Mohammed was well aware that a plenitude of these visible and palpable attractions, to say nothing of grosser sources of pleasure, was an indispensable requisite in a heaven suited to the temperament of his countrymen. Accordingly, he assures the faithful, that they shall enter into delectable gardens, where the rivers flow, some with water, some with wine, some with milk, and some with clarified honey; that there will be fountains and purling streams whose pebbles are rubies and emeralds, their earth of camphire, their beds of musk, and their sides of saffron. In feasting upon the banquets of paradise, at one time the most delicious
