THE BEDOUINS OF ARABIA.
The Deserts of Arabia—Sedentary Arabs and Bedouins—Physical Characteristics of the Bedouins—Remarkable acuteness of their Senses—Their Manners—Their intense Patriotism and Contempt of the dwellers in Cities—The Song of Maysunah—Their Wars—Their Character softened by the Influence of Woman—Their chivalrous Sentiments—The Arab horse—The Camel—Freedom of the Arabs from a Foreign and a Domestic Yoke—The Bedouin Robber—His Hospitality—Mode of Encamping—Death Feuds—Blood-money—Amusements—Throwing the Jereed—Dances—Poetry—Story-telling—Language—The Bedouin and the North American Indian.
Though Arabia possesses some districts of remarkable fertility which enjoy a succession of almost perpetual verdure, yet the greater part of that vast peninsula consists of burning deserts lying under a sky almost perpetually without clouds, and stretching into immense and boundless plains where the eye meets nothing but the uniform horizon of a wild and dreary waste. These naked deserts are encircled or sometimes intersected by barren mountains, which run in almost continuous ridges and in different directions from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Their summits105 tower up into rugged and insulated peaks, but their flinty bosoms supply no humidity to nourish the soil; they concentrate no clouds to screen the parched earth from the withering influence of a tropical sky. Instead of the cooling breezes periodically enjoyed in other sultry climates, hot winds frequently diffuse their noxious breath, alike fatal to animal and vegetable life. The steppes of Russia and the wilds of Tartary are decked by the hand of Nature with luxuriant herbage, but in the Arabian deserts vegetation is nearly extinct. The sandy plains give birth to a straggling and hardy brushwood, while the tamarisk and the acacia strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, and draw a precarious nourishment from the nightly dews.
Were it not for the wadys, or verdant spots lying here and there among the hills, and the various wells or watering stations supplied by periodical rains, the greater portion of Arabia must have remained unpeopled, and for ever impervious to man. In a country like this, where whole years occasionally pass away without a refreshing shower, the possession of a spring is not unfrequently the most valuable property of a tribe. There are large tracts, however, where the luxury of water, as it may well be called, is unknown, and where the desert extends for many a day’s journey without affording the traveller the welcome sight of a single well.
This extraordinary land is inhabited by a no less extraordinary people, divided into two great classes, widely different in their pursuits: the inhabitants of cities and towns, who live by tillage and commerce, and the natives of the desert, who follow a pastoral and predatory life, and consider the former as a separate and inferior race. Through all antiquity this characteristic distinction has remained inviolate, and as it is founded in the nature of the soil is even now as strongly marked as it was in the times of Abraham or Isaac.
In personal appearance, the wandering Arabs or Bedouins are of the middle size, lean and athletic. The legs though fleshless are well made, the arms thin, with muscles like whipcords. Deformity is checked among this nomadic race by the circumstance that no weakly infant can live through the hardships of a Bedouin life. The complexion varies from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are106 attributed by the people to blood. The black hair is either closely shaved, or hanging down in ragged elf-locks to the breast. Most popular writers describe the Arab eye as large, ardent, and black, but, according to Captain Burton, who, on his adventurous pilgrimage to Meccah, had full opportunity for observing many tribes, it is generally dark brown or green-brown, small, round, restless, deep-set, and fiery, denoting keen inspection, with an ardent temperament and an impassioned character. The habit of pursing up the skin below the orbits, and half-closing the lids to prevent dazzle, plants the outer angles with premature crow’s-feet. Another peculiarity is the sudden way in which the eye opens, especially under excitement. This, combined with its fixity of glance, forms an expression now of lively fierceness, then of exceeding sternness. The look of a chief is dignified and grave even to pensiveness, yet there is not much difference in the expression of the eye between men of the same tribe, who have similar pursuits which engender similar passions. ‘Expression,’ as Captain Burton well remarks, ‘is the grand diversifier of appearance among civilised people; in the desert it knows few varieties.’ The bushy black eyebrows are crooked and bent in sign of thoughtfulness. The forehead is high, broad, and retreating. The temples are deep, the cheek-bones salient, which combined with the lantern-jaw often gives a death’s-head appearance to the face. The nose is pronounced, generally aquiline, the ears small and well-cut, the mouth irregular, the teeth, as usual among Orientals, white, even, short, and broad. According to Chateaubriand, no sign would betray the savage in the Arab’s countenance, if he constantly kept his mouth closed; it is when he shows his teeth, of a dazzling whiteness like those of the jackal, that his wild nature shows itself. In this he differs from the American Indian, whose ferocity appears in the eye, while the mouth has a mild expression. Some tribes trim their moustaches according to the practice derived from the Prophet; others shave them, or allow them to hang, Persian-like, over the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled tufts upon the chin, and where the whiskers should be, the place is either bare or thinly covered with straggling hair. The temperament of the Bedouins is either nervous or bilious, rarely sanguine, never107 phlegmatic. They are not seldom subject to attacks of melancholy, which make them dislike the sound of the human voice and long for solitude.
From living constantly in the open air, the nomadic Arabs acquire a remarkable acuteness in all their senses. Their powers of vision and of hearing improve by continual exercise, and as their piercing eye sweeps over the desert it distinguishes objects at an incredible distance. Their sense of smelling, too, is extremely nice. The true Bedouin, when in the tainted atmosphere of towns, is always known by bits of cotton in his nostrils, or his kerchief tightly drawn over his nose, a heavy frown marking extreme disgust. Declining the shelter of a house when business calls him to visit crowded cities, he passes the night in a garden or public square, rather than breathe the confined air of an apartment. One of his most singular faculties is the power of distinguishing the footsteps of men and beasts on the sand, in the same manner as the American Indians discover impressions made upon the grass. From inspecting the footsteps, an Arab can tell whether the individual belonged to his own or some neighbouring tribe, and is thus able to judge whether he be a stranger or a friend. He likewise knows from the faintness or depth of the impression whether the person carried a load or not, whether he passed the same day or several days before. From examining the intervals between the steps, he judges whether or not he was fatigued, as the pace becomes then more irregular and the intervals unequal, hence he calculates the chances of overtaking him. Every Arab can distinguish the footmarks of his own camels from those of his neighbours; he knows whether the animal was pasturing or loaded, or mounted by one or more persons; and can often discover from marks in the sand certain defects or peculiarities of formation that serve him as a clue to ascertain the owner. This sagacity, which enables the Arab to read in the sands of the desert as in a printed volume, becomes extremely useful in the pursuit of fugitives, or in searching after stolen cattle. Instances occur of camels being traced by their masters to the residence of the thief at the distance of five or six days’ journey; and, incredible as it may seen, a Bedouin shepherd can track his own camel in a sandy valley, when108 thousands of other footsteps cross the road in all directions. Thus the proverbially unstable and fugitive sands reveal many a secret to the practised glance of the Arab; and every footstep becomes a witness recording the offender’s guilt.
Of their wonderful acuteness in hearing, some well-attested anecdotes are told of those who act as pilots in the Red Sea. They know very nearly the time when ships from India may be expected, and going down to the water’s edge every night and morning, they lay their ear close to the surface for three or four minutes, and if the ship is not more than 120 miles distant, they can hear the report of the signal gun, or feel the ground shake, upon which they immediately set off in their pilot boat.
The manners of the Bedouins are free and simple; vulgarity and affectation, awkwardness and embarrassment, are weeds of civilised growth, unknown to the people of the desert. Yet their manners are sometimes dashed with a strange ceremoniousness. When two friends meet, they either embrace or both extend the right hands, clapping palm to palm; their foreheads are either pressed together, or their heads are moved from side to side, whilst for minutes together mutual inquiries are made and answered. It is a breach of decorum, even when eating, to turn the back upon a person; and when a Bedouin does it, he intends an insult. When a friend approaches an encampment, those who catch sight of him shout out his name, and gallop up, saluting with their lances or firing matchlocks in the air.
The patriotism of the nomadic Arab is intense. As the Scottish Highlander wherever he roams turns with fond regret to his heath-clad hills, or the exiled Swiss pines for his snow-peaked Alps, thus his sterile sands are dearer to the wandering son of the desert than the fairest regions of the earth. It is in the lonely wilderness that all his attachments centre, for there alone he can enjoy the independence which in all ages has been his cherished possession. The very wildness of this inhospitable scenery constitutes in his eyes its principal charm, and were these features destroyed, the spell would be broken that associates them in his mind with the romantic freedom of his condition. Disdaining the peaceful and mechanical arts, he looks down with contempt upon all those who109 are fixed in local habitations, or engaged in the pursuits of industry, and proud of being a ‘dweller in tents,’ which he can pitch and transplant at pleasure, stigmatises them as ‘dwellers in houses made of clay.’ His tent he regards as the nursery of every noble quality, and the desert as the only residence worthy of a man who aspires to be the unfettered master of his actions. Vain of his birth and freedom, he divides the world into two great bodies; first, the Arabs, and secondly, ‘Ajemi,’ all that are not Arabs; and boasts of the four precious gifts that Allah has bestowed on his nation: ‘turbans instead of diadems, tents in place of walls and bulwarks, swords instead of intrenchments, and poems instead of written laws.’
The deep attachment of the Arab to his native wilds is well expressed in the celebrated song of Maysunah, the beautiful wife of the Caliph Muawijah. The pomp and splendour of an Imperial court could neither reconcile her to the luxuries of the harem nor make her forget the homely charms of her fatherland. Her solitary hours were consumed in melancholy musings, and her greatest delight was in singing the simple pleasures she had enjoyed in the desert. The following translation gives of course but a faint idea of the beauties of the original song, the recital of which fills the Bedouin with delight:
‘Oh take these purple robes away, Give back my cloak of camel’s hair, And bear me from this towering pile To where the Black Tents flap i’ the air. The camel’s colt with faltering tread, The dog that bays at all but me, Delight me more than ambling mules, Than every art of minstrelsy.’
Tradition reports that Muawijah overhearing the song, and perhaps tired of the singer, sent her back to her beloved wilds; but we are not told whether in the desert she did not after all sometimes regret the magnificence of Damascus.
Among the best traits of the Bedouins’ character, we must cite their gentleness and generosity. Usually they are a mixture of worldly cunning and great simplicity; fond of a jest, yet solemn and dignified; easily managed by a laugh and a soft word, and pliable after passion, though madly revengeful after injury. Though reckless when their passions are thoroughly110 roused, their valour is tempered by cautiousness. Their wars are a succession of skirmishes, in which 500 men will retreat after losing a dozen of their number. In this partisan fighting the first charge secures a victory, and the vanquished fly till covered by the shades of night. Then passion or shame prompts them to reprisals, which will probably end in the flight of the former victor. Gain and revenge draw the Arab’s sword; yet, unlike the Irishman who fights for the mere fun of fighting, he must have the all-powerful stimulants of honour and fanaticism to become desperate. The habit of danger in raids and blood feuds, the continual uncertainty of existence, the desert, the chase, his hard life, and the practice of martial exercises, habituate him to look death in the face like a man, and powerful motives will make him a hero.
The ferocity of Bedouin life is softened by his intercourse with the ‘dwellers in houses made of clay,’ who frequently visit and entrust their children to the people of the Black Tents, that they may be hardened by the discipline of the desert. This laudable custom is generally followed by the Sherifs or the descendants of the Prophet residing in Meccah, and even the late Pacha of Egypt gave one of his sons in charge of the Anijah tribe near Akhba, that he might receive a Bedouin education and grow up into a man.
The mild influence of the fair sex likewise tends to soften the nomadic Arab’s character, and to inspire him with chivalrous feelings. In pastoral life tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such circumstances youths will become attached to maidens whom possibly by the laws of the clan they may not marry, and then the lovers have recourse to flight. The fugitives must brave every danger; for revenge, at all times the Bedouin’s idol, now becomes the lode-star of his existence. But the Arab lover will dare all consequences, and stake his life on the possession of her he loves.
Women, indeed, are regarded as inferior beings by their lords and masters, and to them exclusively all the labour and menial offices in the tent are assigned; but in troublous times and in the hour of need, they raise themselves to the level of the stronger sex by physical as well as moral courage. In the early days of Islam, if history be credible, Arabia had111 many heroines, and within the last century Ghalujah, the wife of a Wahabi chief, opposed Mohammed Ali himself in many a bloody field. After a lost battle a retreating tribe has not unfrequently been again led on to victory by the taunts of its women, and Arab poets praise not only female beauty, but also female faith, purity, and affection.
From ancient periods of the Arab’s history, we find him practising knight-errantry, the wildest but most exalted form of chivalry. The fourth Caliph is fabled to have travelled far, redressing the injured, punishing the injurer, preaching to the infidel, and especially protecting women—the chief end and aim of knighthood. The Caliph El Mutasen heard, in the assembly of his courtiers, that a woman of the Sayyid family had been taken prisoner by a ‘Greek barbarian’ of Ammoria. The man on one occasion struck her, when she cried, ‘Help me, O Mutasen!’ and the fellow said derisively, ‘Wait till he cometh upon his pied steed.’ The chivalrous prince arose, sealed up the wine cup which he held in his hand, took oath to do his knightly duty, and on the morrow started for Ammoria with 70,000 men, each mounted on a piebald charger. Having taken the place he entered it, exclaiming, ‘Here am I at thy call!’ He struck off the caitiff’s head, released the lady with his own hands, ordered the cup-bearer to bring the sealed bowl, and drank from it, exclaiming, ‘Now, indeed, wine is good!’ A Knight of the Round Table could have done no better.
It is the existence of this noble spirit which makes the society of Bedouins so delightful to the traveller, who, after enjoying it, laments at finding himself in the ‘loathsome company’ of Persians, or among Arab townpeople, whose ‘filthy and cowardly minds’ he contrasts with the ‘high and chivalrous spirit of the true Sons of the Desert.’
While over the vast continent of America no effort has ever been made by the aboriginal tribes to establish a dominion over the useful animals, with the single exception of the Llama in the Peruvian highlands, we find the Arab shepherd from time immemorial in the absolute possession of the horse and the camel—of a faithful friend, and a laborious slave. Although the high steppes of Central Asia are probably the genuine and original country of the horse, yet in Arabia that generous animal attains the highest degree of spirit and swiftness.112 Such is the estimation in which it is held, that the honours and the memory of the purest race are preserved with superstitious care, the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated, and the birth of a noble foal is esteemed among the tribes as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. A colt at the moment of birth is never allowed to drop upon the ground; they receive it in their arms, washing and stretching its tender limbs, and caressing it as they would a baby. The tender familiarity with which the horses are treated, trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. When not employed in war or............