“Children of Shem! Firstborn of Noah’s race And still forever children; at the door Of Eden found, unconscious of disgrace, And loitering on while all are gone before; Too proud to dig, too careless to be poor Taking the gifts of God in thanklessness, Not rendering aught, nor supplicating more, Nor arguing with Him if He hide His face. Yours is the rain and sunshine, and the way Of an old wisdom, by our world forgot, The courage of a day which knew not death; Well may we sons of Japhet, in dismay, Pause in our vain mad fight for life and breath, Beholding you—I bow and reason not”—_Anon._ Concerning the origin of the tribes and people that now inhabit the Arabian peninsula there is disagreement among the learned. It is generally held that the original tribes of Northern Arabia are descendants of Ishmael. This is also the tradition of all Arab historians. As to the South Arabians, who occupied their highlands with the Hadramaut coast for centuries before the Ishmaelites appeared on the scene there are two opinions. Some believe them to be descendants of Joktan (Arabic _Kahtan_) the son of Heber and therefore, like the Northern Arabs, true Semites. Others think that the earliest inhabitants of South Arabia were Cushites or Hamitic; while some German scholars hold that in the earlier Arabs the children of Joktan and of Cush were blended into one race. Among the Ishmaelites are included not only Ishmael’s direct descendants through the twelve princes,[91] but the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites and probably other cognate tribes. The names of the sons of Ishmael in relation to their settlements and the traces of these names in modern Arabia is a subject which has been taken up by Bible dictionaries but which still offers an interesting field for further study. The Arabs themselves have always claimed Abrahamic descent for the tribes of the north. The age-long, racial animosity between the Yemenites and Māadites seems to confirm the theory of two distinct races inhabiting the peninsula from very early times; and they remain distinct until to-day in spite of a common language and a common religion. “The animosity of these two races to each other is unaccountable but invincible. Like two chemical products which instantly explode when placed in contact, so has it always been found impossible for Yemenite and Māadite to live quietly together. At the present day the Yemenite in the vicinity of Jerusalem detests the Māadite of Hebron, and when questioned as to the reason of their eternal enmity has no other reply but that it has been so from time immemorial. In the time of the Caliphs the territory of Damascus was desolated by a murderous war for two years, because a Māadite had taken a lemon from the garden of a Yemenite. The province of Murcia in Spain was deluged with blood for seven years because a Māadite inadvertently plucked a Yemenite vine-leaf.