In the Hedjaz, letters are sealed with gum-Aabic; and a small vessel full of the diluted gum is suspended near the gate of every large house or khan. Whatever may be the indifference of the Mekkawys for learning, [I may mention, as a strong proof of the neglect of learning at Mekka, that of a dozen persons, respectable from their situations in life, of whom I inquired respecting the place Okath, not one of them knew where it was, or if it still existed. The Okath was the place where the ancient Arabian poets, as late even as the time of Mohammed, used to recite their works to crowds assembled there at a great fair. The prize poems were afterwards suspended at the Kaaba. It is to this custom that we owe the celebrated poems called the Seba Moallakat. A Bedouin of Hodheyl told me that the Okath was now a ruined place in the country of Beni Naszera, between two and three days’ journey south of Tayf. But in El Fasy’s history, I find it stated to be one day’s journey from Tayf; and that it ceased to be frequented as a fair in A.H. 1229. El Azraky says that it was at that distance from Tayf, on the road to Szanaa in Yemen, and belonged to the tribe of Beni Kanane.] [p.215] the language of their city is still more pure and elegant, both in phraseology and pronunciation, than that of any other town where Arabic is spoken. It approaches more nearly than any other dialect to the old written Arabic, and is free from those affectations and perversions of the original sense, which abound in other provinces. I do not consider the Arabic language as on the decline: it is true, there are no longer any poets who write like Motanebbi, Abol’ Ola, or Ibn el Faredh; and a fine flowing prose the Arabs never possessed. The modern poets content themselves with imitating their ancient masters, humbly borrowing the sublime metaphors and exalted sentiments produced from nobler and freer breasts than those of the olemas of the present day. But even now, the language is deeply studied by all the learned men; it is the only science with which the orthodox Moslim can beguile his leisure hours, after he has explored the labyrinth of the law; and every where in the East it is thought an indispensable requisite of a good education, not only to write the language with purity, but to have read and studied the classic poets, and to know their finest passages by heart. The admiration with which Arabic scholars regard their best writers, is the same as that esteem in which Europeans hold their own classics. The far greater part of the Eastern population, it is true, neither write nor read; but of those who have been instructed in letters, a much larger proportion write elegantly, and are well read in the native authors, than among the same class in Europe.