Above one thousand years ago, the answer given to me was given to a Calif El Mamrou, who while on his march to attack the Roman empire, meeting a tribe with narrow tunics like the Persians, and long hair, called them to him, and asked them who they were. They answered, “We are Harrane.” He then said, “Are you Christians?” which they denied. He then asked, “Are you Jews?” That they denied also. Then he said, “Have you got no book, and do you follow no prophet?” And as they returned an uncertain answer, he said to them, “Ye are idolaters, and deserve death!” They then alleged that they paid tribute and had contracted with the Mussulmans; but he tells them that they are not of the number of those who can make contracts, and threatens to extirpate them to the last child unless, on his return, they had professed Islam, or one of the religions mentioned in the book (Judaism or Christianity). They then changed their clothes and cut off their hair; and some became Christians and some Mussulmans; but many would not; and being in great fear of the Calif’s return, they applied to an old man to know what they should do. He said to them, “When Mamrou returns, answer him, ‘WE ARE SABA,’ which is the name of the religion which the Great God has named in the Koran; and thus let us be freed from him!”[255] Mahomet makes Abraham, when passing from Irak into Syria, fall in with Saba, “versed in old books, and who believed what they contained.” Then Abraham says to God: “It does not appear that in the world there are any but I and those who are with me, who are faithful and believe in thee alone. So God ordered him to preach to them; and he called to them, but they would not obey him. ‘How should we,’ said they, ‘believe thee who canst not read?’ So God sent upon them forgetfulness of those sciences and books which they knew.” And this, then, is the last remnant of the people who first fixed the hours of the day--the points of the compass,--who taught the courses of the stars[256]--who were the teachers of letters, and the first law-givers.[257] Small in numbers, scattered without being disconnected, they had their settlements in Arabia Felix; on the Red Sea; on the Persian Gulf; in Syria; in Asia Minor, and in the far regions of the West; and linked with their camels the sea-borne traffic of their twin race with the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Yet of them the stock remains--not one orphan of Tyre subsists.