314 THE DECLINE AND FALL Division of the sandy, the atony, anJ the happy Arabia [Hejd] Mannen of the Be- (loTveera, or par.tuial Arabs sweets. This division of the .sdiuli/, the sloiiij, and the happy, so familiar to the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves ; and it is singular enough that a country, Avhose language and inliabitants had ever been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of Arabia Felix ; the name Neged is extended over the inland space ; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea.-' The measure of population is regulated by the means of sub- sistence ; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be out-numbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious pro- vince. Along the shores of the Persian gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Ichlhi/ophagi,^" or fish-eaters, continued to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence to the narroAv margin of the sea-coast. But in an eai-ly period of antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene of misery ; and, as the naked wilderness could not main- tain a people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert, and in the portrait of the modern Bedoiveeiis we may trace the features of their ancestors,^^ who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt '••Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock ! (Oxon. 1650, in 4to). The thirty pages of text and version ;ire exti-acted from the Dynasties of Gregory Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated (Oxon. 1663, in 4to); the three hundred and fifty-eight notes from a classic and original work on the Arabian antiquities. [Hijaz = barrier.] '".-Vrrian remarks the Ichthyophagi of the coast of Hejaz (Periplus Maris Erythraii, p 12), and beyond Aden (p. 15). It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time, pel haps, of Cyrus ; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian (Procop. de Bell. Persic. 1. i. c. 19). 11 Sec the Specimen Historins 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 Xicbuhr (Description de I'.A.rabie, p. 327-344), and Volney (tom. i. p. 343-385), the last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers. [Sachau (Reise in Syrien, 1883 ; quoted above, vol. ii. p. 491) is the most recent and trustworthy authority. Observe that "Bedoweens" is an incorrect form. Bednwi means an Arab of the desert, opposed to a villager, and
