The world: historical and actual . aken by the En-glish in 1839. In the sack the khan of the periodwas slain. Industry is almost unknown. The peo-ple are worshipers of Allah and his prophet Mo-hammed. In the more favored valleys a little rice,tobacco, cotton, barley and indigo are produced. Arabia, the land of the Prophet, is a peninsulasurrounded by water on all sides except the north, where it borders on Turkey. It is a very uninvitingcountry, hot, dry and unproductive. By the aid ofirrigation the people manage to coax from the soilmeager harvests of coffee, cotton, indigo, tobacco,barley, s
The world: historical and actual . aken by the En-glish in 1839. In the sack the khan of the periodwas slain. Industry is almost unknown. The peo-ple are worshipers of Allah and his prophet Mo-hammed. In the more favored valleys a little rice,tobacco, cotton, barley and indigo are produced. Arabia, the land of the Prophet, is a peninsulasurrounded by water on all sides except the north, where it borders on Turkey. It is a very uninvitingcountry, hot, dry and unproductive. By the aid ofirrigation the people manage to coax from the soilmeager harvests of coffee, cotton, indigo, tobacco,barley, sugar, and many aromatic plants. There isreally no national government. The Arabs beingwandering tribes, each sheik, or patriarch, is apetty tyrant. A few of the people dwell in villagesand cultivate the soil, but for the most part theyare Bedouins, or predatory and vagaboudish is the chief city, owing its prominence to thefact that it was the birthplace of Mohammed. Theother cities of Arabia are Medina, Loheia, Mocha,. Aden, Muscat, Yemba, and Rostok. Once the Arabcaravans were a very important feature in interna-tional transportation, but they have dwindled into ut-ter insignificance now, and Arabia is interesting onlyfrom its suggestions of antiquity. Owing to its deso-lation and sand, the conquerors of the past shunnedit, and the Arabs were allowed to develop in their ownweird way, undistributed by the rise and fall ofempires. It can boast a literature which was richin poetry, at least, before the religious insanity andterrible earnestness of Mohammed had given birthto the Saracen Empire, which was rather an out-growth from than a development of Arabia. Theprincipal exports of the country are dates, coffee,gum arabic, myrrh, aloes, pearls, balsams and otherdrugs. The least important of all the continents, Africa,was the first to attract our attention, including as itdoes that once splendid country, Egypt. The nameitself was not known until after the Romans had T
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectworldhistory, bookyea
