Never has prophecy been so completely fulfilled. It subsisted from the earliest ages; it was verified before the time of Moses; in the time of David and Solomon; it subsisted in the time of Alexander and that of Augustus Cæsar; it subsisted in the time of Justinian,--all very distant, unconnected periods; and I appeal to the evidence of mankind, if, without apparent support or necessity, but what it has derived from God’s promise only, it is not in full vigour at this very day. This prophecy alone, in the truth of which all sorts of religions agree, is therefore of itself a sufficient proof, without other, of the Divine authority of the scripture.
Mahomet prohibited all pork and wine; two articles which must have been, before, very little used in Arabia. Grapes, here, grow in the mountains of Yemen, but never arrive at maturity enough for wine. They bring them down for this purpose to Loheia, and there the heat of the climate turns the wine sour before they can clear it of its fæces so as to make it drinkable; and we know that, before the appearance of Mahomet, Arabia was never a wine country. As for swine, I never heard of them in the peninsula, of Arabia, (unless perhaps wild in the woods about Sana,) and it was from early times inhabited by Jews before the coming of Mahomet. The only people therefore that ate swine’s flesh must have been Christians, and they were a sect of little account. Many of these, however, do not eat pork yet, but all of them were, oppressed and despised every-where, and there was no inducement for any other people to imitate them.
Mahomet then prohibiting only what was merely neutral, or indifferent to the Arabs, indulged them in that to which he knew they were prone.
At the several conversations I had with the English merchants at Jidda, they complained grievously of the manner in which they were oppressed by the sherriffe of Mecca and his officers. The duties and fees were increased every voyage; their privileges all taken away, and a most destructive measure introduced of forcing them to give presents, which was only an inducement to oppress, that the gift might be the greater. I asked them if I should obtain from the Bey of Cairo permission for their ships to come down to Suez, whither there were merchants in India who would venture to undertake that voyage? Captain Thornhill promised, for his part, that the very season after such permission should arrive in India, he would dispatch his ship the Bengal Merchant, under command of his mate Captain Greig, to whose capacity and worth all his countrymen bore very ready testimony, and of which I myself had formed a very good opinion, from the several conversations we had together. This scheme was concerted between me and Captain Thornhill only; and tho’ it must be confessed it had the appearance of an airy one, (since it was not to be attempted, till I had returned through Abyssinia and Nubia, against which there were many thousand chances,) it was executed, notwithstanding, in the very manner in which it had been planned, as will be after stated.