The Hebrew has always exerted a remarkable influence upon the public sentiment, the religious faith, and the foreign and domestic relations of the inhabitants of Arabia. A great analogy exists between the languages of the two nations, and the Hebrew alphabet was used by the prehistoric Arabs. It is believed by many Oriental scholars that Israel was not the founder of the people who bear his name; that the twelve tribes have a mystic relation to certain of the heavenly bodies or to the months of the year; and it is known that the word Keturah means simply “frankincense.” No doubt now exists that the Jew and the Arab are of common ancestry. For a period of twenty-five hundred years before the Hegira the former had been established in Yemen. The trade of that kingdom, with all its vast ramifications, was in his hands. His power enabled him constantly to dictate the policy of its sovereigns. His worship, equally idolatrous with that of the Bedouin--for he was the descendant of the Simeonites, against whom, among others, the anathemas of the Bible were directed--surpassed the latter in the splendor of its appointments and the insolence of its priests. In a land where toleration was otherwise universal, he was enabled to persecute, with implacable enmity, Christian exiles, whom even the rapacity of the desert freebooter had spared. The rich settlements of northwestern Arabia were, to all intents and purposes, Jewish colonies. In the barren and inhospitable region of the Hedjaz, the Jew founded the towns of Medina and Mecca. In such a congenial atmosphere, the superstitions of Asia Minor obtained a ready acceptance. He established the worship of Baal, the most renowned of the Phœnician divinities. He introduced the rite of circumcision, hitherto unknown in Arabia. He communicated his idolatrous observances to the population of the country which had offered him a refuge. He gave a name to its principal city, for the word Mecca is Hebrew, signifying “Great Field of Battle;” the Pagan ceremonial of the Hedjaz can be traced to Palestine, and the Kaaba was originally known as Beth-El, “The House of God.” Quick to recognize the advantages to be derived by commerce from religious pilgrimage, he made that city the centre of national devotion as well as the chief distributing point of the vast trade of Europe, Asia Minor, Ethiopia, and India. The excellent commercial situation of Mecca, near the Red Sea and on the great caravan highway connecting Syria and Yemen, could scarcely compensate, however, for the serious physical disadvantages which unfriendly nature had imposed upon it. Its houses were crowded into a narrow valley two miles long by only nine hundred feet wide. The rays of a vertical sun beat pitilessly down upon a landscape destitute of verdure. Water, the most priceless of blessings in the Desert, was scarce and unpalatable. A salt effervescence covered the neighboring plains. The seasons were