was done, as it is said, by al Khalîl Ahmed al Farâhîdi, who lived in the reign of the Khalîf Harûn al Rashîd.9 The exercise of arms and horsemanship they were in a manner obliged to practise and encourage, by reason of the independence of their tribes, whose frequent jarrings made wars almost continual; and they chiefly ended their disputes in field battles, it being a usual saying among them that GOD had bestowed four peculiar things on the Arabs-that their turbans should be to them instead of diadems, their tents instead of walls and houses, their swords instead of entrenchments, and their poems instead of written laws.1 Hospitality was so habitual to them, and so much esteemed, that the examples of this kind among them exceed whatever can be produced from other nations. Hatem, of the tribe of Tay,2 and Hasn, of that of Fezârah,3 were particularly famous on this account; and the contrary vice was so much in contempt, that a certain poet upbraids the inhabitants of Waset, as with the greatest reproach, that none of their men ad the heart to give, nor their women to deny.4 2 Idem, Spec. p. 159. 3 Geogr. Nub. p. 51. 4 Poc. Spec. 159. 5 Ibid, and p. 381. Et in calce Notar. in Carmen Tograi, p. 233. 6 Jallalo'ddin al Soyûti, apud Poc. Spec. p. 159, &c. 7 Ibid. 160. 8 Ibid. 161. Al Safadi confirms this by a story of a grammarian named Abu Jaafar, who sitting by the Mikyas or Nilometer in Egypt, in a year when the Nile did not rise to its usual height, so that a famine was apprehended, and dividing a piece of poetry into its parts or feet, to examine them by the rules of art, some who passed by not understanding him, imagined he was uttering a charm to hinder the rise of the river, and pushed him into the water, where he lost his life. 9 Vide Clericum de Prosod. Arab. p. 2. 1 Pocock, in calce Notar. ad Carmen Tograi. 2 Vide. Gentii Notas in Gulistan Sheikh Sadi, p. 486, &c. 3 Poc. Spec. p. 48. 4 Ebn al Hobeirah, apud Poc. in not. ad Carmen Tograi, p. 107.