The Eliza Bradley Narrative

true, has been 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 Sethian tyrant: and the Roman province of Arabia embracing the peculiar wilderness in which Ishmael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Scsestis and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia: the present Sovereign of the Turks may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction: but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inherited on the character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, their intrepid valour had been severely felt by their neighbours in offensive war. The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe: but the martial youth under the banner of the Emir is ever on horseback and in the field to practice the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the scymeter. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity; and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent, and to maintain their inheritance. There