THE SLAVONIC TRIBES.--In the sixth century the _Slavonian_ tribes come into view. The _Avars_ stirred up such a commotion among those tribes as the Huns had created among the Germans. The _Slaves_ were driven to the _northwest_, where later they came into relations with Germany; and to the _southwest_, where, as conquerors and as learners, they stood, in some degree, in relation to the Eastern Empire, in the same position as that of the Germans in reference to the Western. North and East of the Adriatic arose Slavonian States, as _Servia, Croatia, Carinthia. Istria_ and _Dalmatia_, except the cities on the coast, became Slavonic. The Slaves displaced the old _Illyrian_ race. In the seventh and eighth centuries, _Macedonia_ and _Greece_ were largely occupied by Slavonians. The _Bulgarians_ were a Turanian people, who mixed with the Slavonians, and adopted their language. In 895 the _Magyars_, a Turanian people, crowded into _Dacia_ and _Pannonia_; and thus the _Bulgarians_ were confined to the lands south of the Danube. The _Magyars_ formed the kingdom of _Hungary_. The Slavonian _Russians_ were cut off from the Southern tribes of the same race. CHAPTER IV. MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE ARABIC CONQUESTS. CONDITION OF ARABIA.--In the sixth century the influence of the Greek and of the Persian Empires, especially of the Persian, was prevalent in Arabia. It was then inhabited mostly by tribes either distinct or loosely bound together, and contained no independent state of any considerable importance. The Arabs of that day had "all the virtues and vices of the half-savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its hospitality and its bounty." In the _Hejaz_ district--situated between fertile and more civilized _Yemen_, or Arabia Felix, in the south-west of the peninsula and the Sinaitic region,--and in _Nejd_ to the east of Hejaz, which were the two districts in which Islam and the Arabian Empire took their rise, dwelt tribes whose common sanctuary was the _Kaaba_ at _Mecca_, in the wall of which was the quadrangular black stone kissed by all devotees, and supposed to have been received from the angel Gabriel. The religion of the Arabs was polytheism in many different forms, in which idol-worship was prominent; but all agreed in acknowledging one supreme God, _Allah_, in whose name solemn oaths were taken. Once in the year the tribes gathered in Mecca for their devotions; and a great fair in the vicinity, attended by a poetical contest, made the city prosperous. The town was made up of separate _Septs_, or patriarchal families, each under its own head, of which septs the _Omayyads_ were of principal importance, and had charge of the _Kaaba_. _Mohammed_ belonged to the _Hashimites_, another and poorer branch of the leading tribe of _Koreish_. The _Koreishites_, by their trading-journeys to Syria, had acquired more culture then others, whether Bedouins, or residents of _Medina_. At the time when _Mohammed_ was born, which was