'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎399] (430/582)

CHARACTER OF THE ARABS.
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soon cut into a thousand pieces, and his body given to the dogs of
the camp to devour. The consequence of this event to the tribe
itself, was their entire disunion and dispersion; and according to
the expression of one of the Arabs belonging to it, who was a
witness of the scene, 4 the very hearts who, under Twiney, were
firm as those of lions, and thought that they were equal to the
conquest of the world, now trembled like the leaves of autumn;
and those on whom the sun rose as heroes, fled from their own
shadows ere he set.'
The Wahabee chief himself, in the plenitude of his power,
possessed an influence and an authority quite equal to any thing
known in former or in present times ; and a mandate issued be
neath his seal was all-powerful from the Nedjed to the borders
of Yemen, and from the shores of the Red Sea to those of the Per
sian Gulf. But now that he had received some signal defeats from
the Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , he had become a fugitive
from castle to castle, and from post to post; and those who in
the day of his prosperity were his most zealous adherents, had
now, in the hour of adversity, become his most inveterate enemies.
Nothing seems to have been more erroneous than the light in
which the union of the Great Desert tribes to the Wahabee inte
rest has been generally viewed. It was thought that the doctrines
of Abd-ul-Wahab had been the torch that kindled the flames of a
new crusade, and that religious enthusiasm was the bond by which
these new reformers were united. But there is too little of holy
zeal in the character of the Desert Arabs, who are notoriously in
different to both the doctrines and practices of religion, to suppose
that it was this alone which stirred them up to enthusiasm m the
cause. The field of plunder, always alluring to them, from habit
and long -established usage, which this new war opened, was a
more powerful temptation than the conversion of souls; and the
pillage of the shrines and temples of the corrupters of the faith by
land, and of the richly laden vessels of Indian idolaters by sea,
was of more weight with them than even the destruction of unbe-