The Arabs are a Semitic people, belonging to the same great ethnologic family with the Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Ethiopians, and Carthaginians.  It is a race which has given to civilized man his literature and his religion; for the alphabet came from the Phoenicians, and the Bible from the Jews.  In Hannibal, it produced perhaps the greatest military genius the world has seen; and the Tyrian merchants, circumnavigating Africa, discovering Great Britain, and trading with India, ten centuries before Christ, had no equals on the ocean until the time of the Portuguese discoveries, twenty-five centuries after.  The Arabs alone, of the seven Semitic families, remained undistinguished and unknown till the days of Mohammed.  Their claim of being descended from Abraham is confirmed by the unerring evidence of language.  The Arabic roots are, nine tenths of them, identical with the Hebrew; and a similarity of grammatical forms shows a plain glossological relation.  But while the Jews have a history from the days of Abraham, the Arabs had none till Mohammed.  During twenty centuries these nomads wandered to and fro, engaged in mutual wars, verifying the prediction (Gen. xvi. 12) concerning Ishmael:  “He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”  Wherever such wandering races exist, whether in Arabia, Turkistan, or Equatorial Africa, “darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people.”  The earth has no geography, and the people no history.  During all this long period, from the time of Abraham to that of Mohammed, the Arabs were not a nation, but only a multitude of tribes, either stationary or wandering.  But of these two the nomad or Bedouin is the true type of the race as it exists in Northern Arabia.  The Arab of the South is in many respects different,—­in language, in manners, and in character,—­confirming the old opinion of a double origin.  But the Northern Arab in his tent has remained unchanged since the days of the Bible.  Proud of his pure blood, of his freedom, of his tribe, and of his ancient customs, he desires no change.  He is, in Asia, what the North American Indian is upon the western continent.  As the Indian’s, his chief virtues are courage in war, cunning, wild justice, hospitality, and fortitude.  He is, however, of a better race,—­more reflective, more religious, and with a thirst for knowledge.  The pure air and the simple food of the Arabian plains keep him in perfect health; and the necessity of constant watchfulness against his foes, from whom he has no defence of rock, forest, or fortification, quickens his perceptive faculties.  But the Arab has also a sense of spiritual things, which appears to have a root in his organization.  The Arabs say:  “The children of Shem are prophets, the children of Japhet are kings, and the children of Ham are slaves.”  Having no temples, no priesthood, no religious forms, their religion is less formal and more instinctive,