COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

THE ARABS. 583
Attention lias been
generations.
justly drawn to the great
difference existing in the relations of civilization between immigrating
Germanic and Arabian races.* The former became
cultivated after their immigration, the latter brought with
them from their native country, not only their religion but a
highly polished language, and the graceful blossoms of a
poetry, which has not been wholly devoid of influence on the
Provengals and Minnesingers.
The Arabs possessed remarkable qualifications, alike for
appropriating to themselves, and again diffusing abroad,
the seeds of knowledge and general intercourse, from the
Euphrates to the Guadulquiver, and to the south of Central
Africa. They exhibited an unparalleled mobility
of cha-
racter, and a tendency to amalgamate with the nations whom
they conquered, wholly at variance with the repelling spirit of
the Israelitish castes, while, at the same time, they adhered
to their national character, and the traditional recollections
of their original home, notwithstanding their constant change
of abode. No other race presents us with more striking ex-
amples of extensive land journeys, undertaken by private
individuals, not only for purposes of trade but also with the
view of collecting information, surpassing in these respects
the travels of the Buddhist priests of Thibet and China,
Marco Polo, and the Christian Missionaries, who were sent
on an embassy to the Mongolian princes. Important elements
of Asiatic knowledge reached Europe, through the
intimate relations existing between the Arabs and the natives
of India and China, (for at the close of the seventh century,
under the Caliphate of the Ommajades, the Arabs had already
extended their conquests to Kaschgar, Kabul, and the Punjaub.)f
The acute investigations of Reinaud have taught us
* Heinrich Hitter, Gesch. der christlichen Philosophie, th. iii. 1844,
s. 669-676.
*f- Reinaud, in three late writings, which show how much may still
be derived from Arabic and Persian, as well as Chinese sources ;
Fragments Arabes et Persans inedits relatifs d I'Inde anterieurement
au Xle siecle de I'ere chretienne, 1845, pp. xx.-xxxiii. ; Rela-
tion des Voyages fails par les Arabes et les Persans dans I'Inde et d,
la Chine dans le IXe siecle de noire ere, 1845, t. i. p. xlvi. : Memoirs
geog. et hist, sur I'Inde daprcx les ecrivains Arabes, Persans, et
Chinois, anterieurement au milieu du onzieme siecle de I 'ere chre-
tienne, 1846, p. 6. The second of these memoirs of the learned