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At the beginning of the seventh century we glean our last notice of any event connected with the commerce and maritime enterprise of the Romans; and the same period introduces us to the rising power and commerce of the Arabians.

Though, more wealthy than the unrifled treasures of the Arabians and rich India, you should possess yourself by your edifices of the whole Tyrrhenian and Apulian seas; yet, if cruel fate fixes its adamantine grapples upon the topmost roofs, you shall not disengage your mind from dread, nor your life from the snares of death.

With one accord the entire band cast weapons aside and fell face downward, beating their heads against the rock, just as he had seen Arabians and Nubians perform in saluting some mighty potentate. The brown backs remained in that position for a full minute before he could call his trembling companion to his side. "What does it mean?" whispered she at last. "Are they dead?"

Mahomet, in the first year of the publication of the Koran, directed his followers, when at prayer, to turn their faces toward it, and pilgrimages have constantly been made to the holy spot by devout Moslems. On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Arabians, it was the first care of the caliph Omar to rebuild "the Temple of the Lord."

Should I go on in this way till I am forty, I must then be very learned; and perhaps, among other things, may have translated the Talmud, and some of the great works of the Arabians. Pooh! all this is mere learning and translation, and such will never secure immortality. Translation is at best an echo, and it must be a wonderful echo to be heard after the lapse of a thousand years.

To this he hearkened at first, but when the Armenians and Gordyenians in a full body, and the whole forces of Medes and Adiabenians, under their respective kings, joined him; when many Arabians came up from the sea beyond Babylon; and from the Caspian sea, the Albanians and the Iberians their neighbors, and not a few of the free people, without kings, living about the Araxes, by entreaty and hire also came together to him; and all the king's feasts and councils rang of nothing but expectations, boastings, and barbaric threatenings, Taxiles went in danger of his life, for giving counsel against fighting, and it was imputed to envy in Mithridates thus to discourage him from so glorious an enterprise.

Sylleus was also accused by Aretas, that without his consent he had slain many of the chief of the Arabians at Petra; and particularly Soemus, a man that deserved to be honored by all men; and that he had slain Fabatus, a servant of Caesar.

But the success of Mohammed and the preaching of the Koran were followed by the union of the tribes who, inspired by the feelings of national pride and religious fervor, in less than a century made the Arabian power, tongue, and religion predominant over a third part of Asia, almost one half of Africa, and a part of Spain; and, from the ninth to the sixteenth century, the literature of the Arabians far surpassed that of any contemporary nation.

Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest.

On account of his zeal for study Rhazes was known as the "Experimentator." The first of the Arabians, known throughout the Middle Ages as the Prince, the rival, indeed, of Galen, was the Persian Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, one of the greatest names in the history of medicine.