prosperous settlement, would attract fresh adherents; and loosely floating clans, thus coalescing with a larger tribe, would merge in it their individuality. Hence the surface of society was ever shifting, like the changing collocations of a kaleidoscope. When we remember that in Arabia there were no archives wherein the record of such changes could be preserved; it is vain to look for any trustworthy outlines of the more remote periods of Arabian history. Some great tribes may, no doubt, have maintained their individuality through many ages,—as the Mozeina and Suleim, for example, have done from the time of Mahomet to the present day: but it must also be remembered that Islam has introduced an element of fixity into the social system unknown before, and we must not estimate the restless chaotic state of ante-Mahometan Arabia by its subsequent history. 

All then that we can look for in the elaborate and voluminous work of the Genealogists, is a picture of tribal distinctions as they existed in the time of Mahomet, with an approximate sketch of the great families to which each was affiliated. We may here and there catch a glimpse of the grand outlines of race reaching back to some antiquity, but further than this we cannot attach weight to the system. It was based on the mere theories of the Genealogists who, when fact was wanting, contrived, invented, fabricated, without stint or scruple, both the outlines and detail. The vast pile of Arab genealogy, beautiful and symmetrical as it is, melts away, like a fabric reared of snow, before the merciless criticism of Sprenger. 

Scrupulous in harmonising the steps and "distances" in the various pedigrees, the Genealogists were incapable of weighing wider and more important considerations. The rate of natural increase was not observed, or was cast aside as irrelevant. Thus (an example cited by Sprenger) two tribes, numbering in the time of Mahomet perhaps 50,000 souls, are traced to progenitors who were cousins of Cossai,—i.e., only five generations back! The theory is perfect; but the facts divergent. 

Sprenger was for a time puzzled to find a reason which would account for these strange inconsistencies. His first hypothesis