it was miraculously undermined by rats.  A learned Indian Shaykh has mistaken the Arabic word “Jurad,” a large kind of mouse or rat, for “Jarad,” a locust, and he makes the wall to have sunk under a “bar i Malakh,” or weight of locusts!  No event is more celebrated in the history of pagan Arabia than this, or more trustworthy, despite the exaggeration of the details-the dyke is said to have been four miles long by four broad-and the fantastic marvels which are said to have accompanied its bursting.  The ruins have lately been visited by M. Arnaud, a French traveller, who communicated his discovery to the French Asiatic Society in 1845. [FN#16] Ma al-Sama, “the water (or “the splendour”) of heaven,” is, generally speaking, a feminine name amongst the pagan Arabs; possibly it is here intended as a matronymic. [FN#17] This expedition to Al-Madinah is mentioned by all the pre-Islamatic historians, but persons and dates are involved in the greatest confusion.  Some authors mention two different expeditions by different Tobbas; others only one, attributing it differently, however, to two Tobbas,-Abu Karb in the 3rd century of the Christian era, and Tobba al-Asghar, the last of that dynasty, who reigned, according to some, in A.D. 300, according to others in A.D. 448.  M.C. de Perceval places the event about A.D. 206, and asserts that the Aus and Khazraj did not emigrate to Al-Madinah before A.D. 300.  The word Tobba or Tubba, I have been informed by some of the modern Arabs, is still used in the Himyaritic dialect of Arabic to signify “the Great” or “the Chief.” [FN#18] Nothing is more remarkable in the annals of the Arabs than their efforts to prove the Ishmaelitic descent of Mohammed; at the same time no historic question is more open to doubt. [FN#19] If this be true it proves that the Jews of Al-Hijaz had in those days superstitious reverence for the Ka’abah; otherwise the Tobba, after conforming to the law of Moses, would not have shown it this mark of respect.  Moreover there is a legend that the same Rabbis dissuaded the Tobba from plundering the sacred place when he was treacherously advised so to do by the Benu Hudayl Arabs.  I have lately perused “The Worship of Ba’alim in Israel,” based upon the work of Dr. R. Dozy, “The Israelites in Mecca.”  By Dr. H. Oort.  Translated from the Dutch, and enlarged, with Notes and Appendices, by the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D. (Longmans.) I see no reason why Meccah or Beccah should be made to mean “A Slaughter”; why the Ka’abah should be founded by the Simeonites; why the Hajj should be the Feast of Trumpets; and other assertions in which everything seems to be taken for granted except etymology, which is tortured into confession.  If Meccah had been founded by the Simeonites, why did the Persians and the Hindus respect it? [FN#20] It is curious that Abdullah, Mohammed’s father, died and was buried at Al-Madinah, and that his mother Aminah’s tomb is at Abwa, on the Madinah road.  Here, too, his great-grandfather