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 318 THE DECLINE AND FALL equal distance, a month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on the 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 trouble- some navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of Saana and Merab, in the harbours of Oman and Aden, the camels of the Koreishites were laden with a j^^ecious 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 pi'ofession of merchandise. -^ National in- The pcrpctual independence of the Arabs has been the theme uie Arabs" °^"f pi'^i^fi among strangers and natives; and the arts of contro- versy transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favour of the posterity of Ismael.-* Some excepti(ms, that can neither be dissembled nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is supei-fluous : the kingdom of Yemen has Ijeen 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 2S Miruin dictu ex innumeris populis pars asqua in commeiriis aut in latrociniis degit (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32). See Sale's Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient, p. 361. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, torn. i. p. 72, 120, 126, Sec. -■*A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo edition) has formally dcmonsiratcd the truth of Christianity by the independence of the .rabs. .-^ critic, besides the exceptions of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12), the extent of the application, and the foundation of the pedigree. -5 It was subdued, ..D. 1173, by a brother of the great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Aroubites (Guignes, Hist, des Huns, torn. i. p. 425. D'Her- belot, p. 477). -'By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538), and Sclim II. (1568). Sec Cantemir's Hist, of the Othman empire, p. 201, 221. The Pasha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one Beys, but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte (Marsigli, .Stato Militare dell' Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124), and the Turks were expelled about the year 1630 (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168). -" Of the Roman province, under the name of .rabia and the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra, which dated their fera from the rear 105, when they were subdued by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan (Dion. Cassius, 1. Ixviii [c. 14]). Petra was the capital of the Nabathasans ; whose name is derived from the eldest of the sons of Ismael (Gen. xxv. 12, &c. with the Commentaries of Jerom, 1-e Clerc, and Calmet). Justinian relinquished a palm country of ten daj's' journey to the south of .i:iah (Procop. de Bell. Persic. 1. i. c. 19), and the Romans maintained a centurion and a custom-house (.rrian in i'eriplo Maris Erythriti, p. II, in Hudson, loin, i.) at a place (Aeuxij (ciunt;, Pagus .'lbus Hawara) in the terri- tory of Medina (d'.^nville, Memoire sur I'Egypte, p. 243). These real possessions, and some naval inroads of Trajan (Peripl. p. 14, 15), are magnified by history and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. [After Diocletian, .rabia was divided into two provinces; see above, vol. ii. p. 550, n. 6.]