Page 374 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

XX.] TRAVELS IN OMAN. 335

intolerance towards those professing opposite
*
tenets; and a sort of monopoly of righteous
ness, cloaked beneath studied meekness and
assumed humility. However, notwithstand­

ing these defects, his treatise certainly dis­
plays great subtilty of argument, with ex­
tensive theological as 'well as historical read-

ing. Like Hudibras,

He could a hair divide
Betwixt the south and south-west side.
And when considered in reference to the
notoriously contradictory tenets of Islamism,

it is an amusing specimen of that singular
aptitude, possessed by some men, for making

“ the worse appear the better cause.”
Ibn ’Abu Mihan resided in Maskat at the

time I left OmAn.
Its population must be classed under two

separate heads; those who reside perma­
nently in the towns and oases, and the Be-
dowins, who inhabit the intermediate De­

sert. The latter are the indigenous inhabit­
ants of the country, retaining all the personal

characteristics of the true sons of Ishmael;
the former are fairer, and somewhat more
fleshy, although the difference is far less