of Mecca could not but widen the mental horizon of the aspiring youth, afford ample scope for his calculating mind, and prove a good school for becoming acquainted with different classes of men and for learning how to deal with them. His father, his uncles, his grandfather and great-grandfather, all took part in mercantile pursuits, and derived much of their wealth from joining other merchants in regular trading expeditions of large dimensions to foreign lands. Mohammed himself also had in all probability joined many of these caravans before he had developed those mercantile qualifications and trading abilities which afterwards recommended him as a fit and desirable agent to the wealthy merchant widow Khadija who engaged him.

But what appears to be his first journey of the kind, when he was still quite young, is fully narrated by the biographers. They tell us that, on one occasion, when Abu Talib was ready to start, his orphan nephew clung to him saying, 'O my uncle, I have neither mother nor father: with whom wilt thou leave me? Take me with thee on the journey.' This so touched the uncle's heart that he replied: 'By Allah! I take thee with me and allow nothing to separate us.' So they set out together, and the caravan halted, as was their wont, near the abode of a Christian anchorite, Bahira by name.

The biographers' predilection for the marvellous, and for discovering prognostications concerning Mohammed's later career, fastens on this journey; and they seriously narrate that Bahira, whom they represent as 'well acquainted with the Christian Scriptures,' had a book in his cell from which the monks instructed themselves, and which passed from one to another, as an heirloom. In this book the Arabian Prophet is reported to have been so minutely described that Bahira recognised him without difficulty in Abu Talib's nephew. On examining his back, he found the so-called 'seal of prophetship,' in the very place between his shoulders where it was to be, according to the description of the book. It had the appearance of the cicatrice left by cupping; and taking into consideration the lad's previous state of ill-health, it very probably was nothing more than what it looked. Bahira is then reported to have addressed this counsel to Abu Talib: 'Go home with the lad and carefully keep him

from the Jews: for if they see and recognise him as I do, they will seek to do him harm. Surely this thy nephew will one day occupy a high rank.' Abu Talib acted on this advice as soon as he had finished his business transactions in Syria.

Thus Mohammed grew up in the bosom of a mercantile family and in the midst of a busy city of traders; and turning these favourable circumstances to good account, he became himself an accomplished man of business and a practical merchant. His attractive personal qualities and eminent fitness for doing a profitable trade led to his marriage with the wealthy widow Khadija; and the vast increase of worldly means thus placed at his disposal favoured his conception and pursuit of still higher and more pretentious aims.

Ibn Ishak mentions the circumstances leading to the marriage with Khadija; and faithful to the general Moslem propensity of embellishing the ordinary events in Mohammed's life with traits of the supernatural, narrates as follows 'The Koreish were a mercantile tribe, and Khadija an honourable merchant lady who placed her goods in the hands of agents for trading purposes and allowed them a share in the profits. When she heard of Mohammed's faithfulness, truthfulness, and good manners, she proposed to him to take the charge of her goods for Syria, offering better terms to him than to any one else. Mohammed accepted the proposal and took her merchandise to Syria, accompanied by her trusted servant Meisara. When he rested under the shadow of a tree, near the cell of an anchorite, the latter said to Meisara: "Under this tree no one has ever rested except a prophet." After having disposed of their goods and bought others instead, they returned to Mecca; but on the way, as is believed, Meisara saw two angels overshadow Mohammed, whilst he was riding on his camel, in the heat of the day. On their reaching Mecca, the goods they had brought with them were sold, and Khadija found that the capital invested had been doubled, or nearly so. Meisara also told her what the anchorite had said, and what he himself had seen of the overshadowing angels.

'When Khadija, who was an intelligent, good, and noble