Let us now introduce ourselves to our hero himself. His face has taken the set features of manhood, and we may safely apply to him the picture left by his contemporaries of the man as they knew him, {17} and as in later years they bowed beneath his influence and power. He was no Saul in stature, though perhaps above the average height; yet in his countenance there was much that we are accustomed to expect in a leader of men. A Napoleonic nose, a head too big for the body, flowing jet black locks, falling on either side of his face, intense, gleaming black eyes, slightly bloodshot, an ample beard and moustache covering a rather sensuous mouth must have given him a striking and commanding appearance. His skin was slightly fairer than that of most Arabs, with a faint tinge of blue. Across his ample forehead ran a prominent vein, of which much is said, and which used to swell and throb when he was angry. Yet, withal, his face could have its gentler moods; he could be kindly when he would, and to the end he was a lover of children. [Sidenote: His Manner of Life.] Such was his outward appearance; we have some records, too, of his manner of life among his fellow-citizens in Mecca--records which show no trace of the man that was to be; he was respected but undistinguished. From early manhood they named him Al Amin--'The Faithful,'--and he seems to have been regarded by {18} his fellow-citizens as a solid, dependable, brotherly, genuine man. Passionate and unrestrained, yet a serious, sincere, character, capable of real amiability, and with a good laugh in him withal. [Sidenote: Fair of Ukas.] Year by year would come fresh stimulus to his active mind. With his fellow-citizens he went regularly to the annual fair at Ukaz, probably on business as well as pleasure bent. This fair was indeed one of the few institutions of Arabia which could well be called 'national.' Thither during two sacred months of truce the many scattered tribes gathered. It was the 'Olympia' of Arabia. The rivalry was not the rivalry of discus and javelin, but of poetry and eloquence. Ukaz was, indeed, the press, the stage, the pulpit, the parliament, and the 'Academie Française' of the Arab people. It was the focus of all the literature of Arabia. Thither resorted the poets of these rival clans and tribes, to a literary congress without formal judges but with unbounded influence. And because it was the centre of emulation for Arab poets, it was also a kind of annual review of Bedouin virtues and Arabian religion. For it was in poetry {19} that the Arab--as indeed man all the world over--expressed his highest thoughts.