The tribe of Ad were descended from Ad, the son of Aws,1 the son of Aram,2 the son of Sem, the son of Noah, who, after the confusion of tongues, settled in al Ahkâf, or the winding sands in the province of Hadramaut, where his posterity greatly multiplied. Their first king was Shedâd the son of Ad, of whom the eastern writers deliver many fabulous things, particularly that he finished the magnificent city his father had begun, wherein he built a fine palace, adorned with delicious gardens, to embellish which he spared neither cost nor labour, proposing thereby to create in his subjects a superstitious veneration of himself as a god.3 This garden or paradise was called the garden of Irem, and is mentioned in the Korân,4 and often alluded to by the oriental writers. The city, they tell us, is still standing in the deserts of Aden, being preserved by providence as a monument of divine justice, though it be invisible, unless very rarely, when GOD permits it to be seen, a favour one Colabah pretended to have received in the reign of the Khalîf Moâwiyah, who sending for him to know the truth of the matter, Colabah related his whole adventure; that as he was seeking a camel he had lost, he found himself on a sudden at the gates of this city, and entering it saw not one inhabitant, at which, being terrified, he stayed no longer than to take with him some fine stones which he showed the Khalîf.5 The descendants of Ad in process of time falling from the worship of the true God into idolatry, GOD sent the prophet Hûd (who is generally agreed to be Heber6) to preach to and reclaim them. But they refusing to acknowledge his mission, or to obey him, GOD sent a hot and suffocating wind, which blew seven nights and eight days together, and entering at their nostrils passed through their bodies.7 and destroyed them all, a very few only excepted, who had believed in Hûd and retired with him to another place.8 That prophet afterwards returned into Hadramaut, and was buried near Hasec, where there is a small town now standing called Kabr Hûd, or the sepulchre of Hûd. Before the Adites were thus severely punished, GOD, to humble them, and incline them to hearken to the preaching of his prophet, afflicted them with a drought for four years, so that all their cattle perished, and themselves were very near it; upon which they sent Lokmân (different from one of the same name who lived in David's time) with sixty others to Mecca to beg rain, which they not obtaining, Lokmân with some of his company stayed at Mecca, and thereby escaped destruction, giving rise to a tribe called the latter Ad, who were afterward changed into monkeys.1 Some commentators on the Korân2 tell us these old Adites were of prodigious stature, the largest being 100 cubits high, and the least 60; which extraordinary size they pretend to prove by the testimony of the Korân.3 The tribe of Thamûd were the posterity of Thamûd the son of Gather4 the son