"I have seen ten singing-girls, five of them Greeks, singing Greek songs to the music of lutes, and five from Ḥíra who had been presented to King Jabala by Iyás b. Qabíṣa,[111] chanting Babylonian airs. Arab singers used to come from Mecca and elsewhere for his delight; and when he would drink wine he sat on a couch of myrtle and jasmine and all sorts of sweet-smelling flowers, surrounded by gold and silver vessels full of ambergris and musk. During winter aloes-wood was burned in his apartments, while in summer he cooled himself with snow. Both he and his courtiers wore light robes, arranged with more regard to comfort than ceremony,[112] in the hot weather, and white furs, called _fanak_,[113] or the like, in the cold season; and, by God, I was never in his company but he gave me the robe which he was wearing on that day, and many of his friends were thus honoured. He treated the rude with forbearance; he laughed without reserve and lavished his gifts before they were sought. He was handsome, and agreeable in conversation: I never knew him offend in speech or act."[114] [Sidenote: Ghassánid civilisation.] [Sidenote: Nábigha's encomium.] Unlike the rival dynasty on the Euphrates, the Ghassánids had no fixed residence. They ruled the country round Damascus and Palmyra, but these places were never in their possession. The capital of their nomad kingdom was the temporary camp (in Aramaic, _ḥértá_) which followed them to and fro, but was generally to be found in the Gaulonitis (al-Jawlán), south of Damascus. Thus under the quickening impulse of Hellenistic culture the Ghassánids developed a civilisation far superior to that of the Lakhmites, who, just because of their half-barbarian character, were more closely in touch with the heathen Arabs, and exercised a deeper influence upon them. Some aspects of this civilisation have been indicated in the description of Jabala b. al-Ayham's court, attributed to the poet Ḥassán. An earlier bard, the famous Nábigha, having fallen out of favour with Nu‘mán III of Híra, fled to Syria, where he composed a splendid eulogy of the Ghassánids in honour of his patron, King ‘Amr, son of Ḥárith the Lame. After celebrating their warlike prowess, which he has immortalised in the oft-quoted verse-- "One fault they have: their swords are blunt of edge Through constant beating on their foemen's mail," he concludes in a softer strain: "Theirs is a liberal nature that God gave To no men else; their virtues never fail. Their home the Holy Land: their faith upright: They hope to prosper if good deeds avail. Zoned in fair wise and delicately shod, They keep the Feast of Palms, when maidens pale, Whose scarlet silken robes on trestles hang, Greet them with odorous boughs and bid them hail. Long lapped in ease tho' bred to war, their limbs Green-shouldered vestments, white-sleeved, richly veil."[115] [Sidenote: Character of Bedouin history.]