ARABIA. 



410 



open 

 Th* 



country, a desert, 1 and aignine. an inhabitant of the desert. 

 Arab* who live in town*. Niabuhr observes, especially those near 

 bare through their commerce had so much intercourse 



with strangers, that they hare lost much of their ancient manner* and 

 Mkinil Put the true Arab*, who hare always valued their freedom 

 Ugbw than wealth and luxury, live in detached tribe* under tents, 

 and Mill adhere to the primitive form of government, habits, and 

 1MB*,** of their ancestors. Their noble* they call sheikh*. A ihrikh 

 rule* over hi* family and all their servants. If they are unable 

 nparately to defend their property against a hoatile neighbour, several 

 petty hiH unite, and choon a chief from among themselves. 

 Several chief*, with the aa*ent of the petty sheikha, submit to one 

 till more powerful, who is called aheikh-al-keber, or sheikh-al-shoyukh, 

 and the entire body of united tribe* is then named after the family of 

 this supreme sheikh. The Beduins are all, a* it were, born soldiers, 

 while at the same time they attend to their cattle. The sheikhs of 

 the great tribe* have a large number of camels, partly for use in time 

 of war, partly to transport the goods of merchant* from one town to 

 another, and partly for sale. The smaller tribes, which are leas 

 wealthy and independent, principally tend sheep. Agriculture and 

 other descriptions of hard work they commit to their subjects, the 

 common Arabs, who live in miserable huts ; the sheikhs lire under 

 tonU. Being accustomed to an atmosphere of great purity, the scent 

 of these Arab* of the desert is uncommonly nice. It is said they are 

 able to live for five days without drinking. The government remains 

 in the family of every greater or smaller sheikh : among the sons -or 

 nearest relations, not the eldest, but he who appear* the best fitted for 

 the office, is chosen. They pay little or nothing in the way of taxes to 

 their superiors. Every little sheikh is not only the protector, but also 

 the leader of his family ; he U accordingly looked upon by the greater 

 sheikh rather as a confederate than as a subject If one of the little 

 sheikhs i* dissatisfied with his sheikh-al-keber, and is nevertheless 

 unable to depose him, he will remove with his cattle to another tribe, 

 which i* usually glad to strengthen its party. Every sheikh, however 

 small he may be, must therefore endeavour to govern his tribe well, 

 for fear of being deposed or deserted. The name* of many tribes, once 

 powessing great power, have thus fallen into oblivion; and small 

 familial, unknown before, have raised themselves to importance. 



The Beduins have never been subjugated by foreign conquerors : 

 only a few tribes who live near the large towns of Bagdad, Mosul, 

 Orfa, Damascus, and Aleppo, are in some degree subject or tributary 

 to the Grand Seignior. The several tribes are often at war with one 

 another; but their conflicts are neither sanguinary nor of long 

 duration. Whenever any tribe is attacked by a foreign enemy, all 

 the neighbouring chiefs will unite in defence of the common cause. 

 Every sheikh considers himself as sovereign in his territory, and there- 

 fore entitled to exact a tribute from travellers passing through it. 

 The Turkish sultans even used to engage themselves to pay annually 

 a fixed sum of money, besides a number of garments, to the Beduin 

 tribes on the road to Mecca, for not destroying the .wells along the 

 way, and for conducting the pilgrims through their respective 

 territories. Nevertheless dispute* frequently arose between the 

 sheikhs and the haughty Turkish leaders of the caravans, in conse- 

 quence of which the pilgrims were often attacked and plundered. 



The sheikhs are daily mounted on horseback or on their dromedaries 

 to inspect their subjects, to visit friends, or to enjoy the pleasure* of 

 the chaw. The horizon in the desert is nearly as open as at sea. If a 

 Beduin *ees a solitary wanderer from afar, he rides towards him, and 

 orders him to undrew. In such cases the Beduins are real robbers ; 

 yet it would be incorrect to say that they live chiefly from robbery. 

 They seldom kill. those whom they plunder, provided no resistance is 

 offered; the robber is sometime* even kind and hospitable to the 

 forlorn traveller whom he ha* plundered, furnishing him with 

 provision* and old clothes in exchange for his own, and conducting 

 him part of hi* way, that he may not perish in the desert 



The tent* of the Beduins are made of a coarse kind of dark-coloured 

 cloth, woven by their own women, which is drawn over seven or nine 

 pole* fixed upright in the ground, the middlemost being the highest 

 The larger tents consist of two or three compartment*, so as to have 

 separate room* for the men and women, and for the domestic animals. 

 The poor, who cannot afford the expense of a regular tent, spread a 

 piece of cloth a* large a* they can get near a tree, or take shelter in 

 the oaves of rooks from heat or rain. There is but little furni- 

 ture in a Beduin tent : a mat of straw is used a* table, chair, and 

 bedstead ; spare clothes are kept in bag*. The kitchen apparatus is 

 very simple and portable. The pot* an made of copper lined with t i 11 ; 

 the dishes of the same metal* or of wood. Their hearth is easily 

 built ; they merely place their cauldrons on loose (tones, or ov, 

 dug in UM ground. They have neither spoon* nor knives and forks. 

 A round pieos of leather serve* them as a Ubl.--l..th, in which the 

 rtmains of the meal an preserved. Their butter, which the heat 

 MB melU down, they keep in leather bottle*. Water is kept in g<*U' 

 km* : a copper cup, carefully tinned over, serves as a ririnking-vessel. 

 Wind mills and water mill* are unknown; all grain U groun.l in 

 mall hand mill Then are also no ovens in the desert : the dough is 

 either ka**dd into a Oat cake, ami baked on a round iron plate, or it 

 is formed into large lumps, which are laid between glowing coal* till 

 thy an sufficiently baked. Among the great sheikhs of th. desert, 



who require nothing but pilau i. t. boiled rice for their meals, a 

 Urge wooden dish full U served up, around which one party after 

 another ait* down, till the dish is emptied, or all are satisfied. 



Ancirnt Arabia, at hum* to Ike water* nation*. The history of 

 antiquity is not without traces of an early influence of the Arab* on 

 the condition of neighbouring nations. The book of Genesis 

 ( x. 10 ) mentions Nimrod as the founder of the Babylonian empire 

 'And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad 

 and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.' We think we recognise in 

 Nimrod, the mighty hunter, an Arabian chieftain, like the modern 

 sheikhs of the Beduins : in the passage quoted from the Hebrew, Erech 

 is, according to several of the ancient versions, the modern Orfa 

 (Edessa); Accad i* supposed to be Nisibit, in Mesopotamia; and 

 Calneh to correspond with the situation of Cteaiphon on the Tigris. 



Egypt seems at an early period to have been infected by invasions 

 from Arabia; for we cannot hesitate to consider the Hyksos as 

 predatory Arabian tribe*. They are said to have occupied the Delta, 

 and to have penetrated as far as Memphis, which they made their 

 capital : the king of Thebes, Thothme*, at last succeeded in expelling 

 them. Their dominion over Egypt is said to have lasted 284 years 

 it is supposed from the 18th till the 16th century before the Christian 

 era. Sesostris is said to have built a wall, 1500 stadia long, from 

 Pelusium to Heliopolis, to protect Egypt from a repetition of such 

 invasions ; but this story about the wall is open to several serious 

 objections. 



Among the nomadic tribes in the northern tracts of Arabia, the 

 Midianites seem to have early applied themselves to traffic with the 

 neighbouring nations. It was a caravan of Midianite merchants to 

 whom Joseph was sold ( Gen. xxxvii 28, 36 ). Arabia was the 

 country of frankincense; and so essential a requisite of religious 

 worship in all the temples of antiquity would soon give great import- 

 ance to the trade of foreign countries with Arabia. Germ, probably 

 situated near the present Kl-Katif or Lahaa, was, according to Strabo, 

 a Babylonian colony, founded by Chaldeean emigrants. The exact 

 period of it* foundation is unknown ; but the companions of Alexander 

 the Great found it an opulent town ( Strabo, xvi. c. 3, p. 766, Casaub.), 

 and it must have been long prospering as an emporium. The advan- 

 tages for an extensive commerce by land and by sea, poisoned by a 

 harbour thus situated on the spacious Persian Gulf, are striking. 

 From Gerra the productions of both Arabia and India were shipped 

 to Babylon, and farther up the Euphrates to Thapsacus, whence they 

 spread by land all over western Asia. 



Considerable variety of opinion prevails concerning the situation of 

 Ophir, the country whence the ships of Solomon, conjointly with 

 those of the Phoenicians, brought gold, silver, gems, sandalwood, and 

 other precious articles ( 1 Kings ix. 28 ; x. 2, 22 ). Bochart, Reland, 

 and other critics sought it in India. Modern historian* are inclined to 

 think that it was situated in Arabia. The name is, in the book of 

 Genesis ( x. 29 ), enumerated among Arabian tribes descended from 

 Joktan, and a town named El-Ofir ha* recently been found on the 

 coast of Oman. 



In the history of ancient commerce generally, Arabia is of importance 

 not only on account of the export of its own productions, but also as 

 an intermediate station in the trade with India. Herodotus ( iii. 1 07 ) 

 calls Arabia the only country where frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and 

 ladanum are to be found : Strabo ( xiv. c. 4, torn. 3, p. 385, ed. 

 Tauchnitz ) mentions the province of Cattabania in particular as the 

 country of frankincense, and Chatramotitis ( Hadramaut ) as that of 

 myrrh. Gold and precious stones are also often alluded to by the 

 ancients as indigenous productions of Arabia Felix. Gold-mines are 

 not at present known to exist ; some precious stones, such as the onyx, 

 the ruby, and a kind of agate called the Mokha-stone, are common in 

 Yemen and Hadramaut. In enumerating cinnamon among the 

 productions of Arabia, Herodotus probably confounded the real 

 productions of the country with the other foreign articles which, liko 

 ivory and ebony, the western nations might procure from Arabian 

 emporia. 



Antiquity abounds in proofs of the early trade of the Phoenicians 

 with In.lia, which must in a great measure have been carried on by 

 caravans through Arabia. One of the earliest and most important 

 allusions to thi* mercantile intercourse of the Phoenicians with several 

 towns or countries and tribes of Arabia, occurs in the elegy of the 

 prophet Ezekiel on the full of Tyre, (xxvii, 1224 ). Beside* this 

 caravan trade with the Phoenicians, the intercourse of the ancient Arabs 

 with the western world seems to have been but scanty, and accordingly 

 the accounts of Arabia given by the classical writers are imperfect The 

 mm j.i.l valour of the Arab* was proverbial among the Greeks and 

 Romans. The body of the nation ha* escaped the dominion of the 

 most powerful monarchic* that have arisen and fallen in it* immediate 

 neighbourhood. Of the ancient Persian empire, Herodotus ( iii. 88.) 

 expressly mentions, that all nations of ( western ) Asia were subject to 

 Darius Hystayspis, except the Arabs, who were the independent confe- 

 derate* of the Persians : and when Cambyse* had formed the design 

 of invading Egypt, he was obliged to seek the friendship of some 

 Arabs, who engaged to supply the Persian army with water during its 

 march through the sands of Arabia Petrtca. (Hcrodot iii. 7 9.) If 

 Phul, the conqueror of the new Assyrian empire, is said to have 

 subdued the Arabs, or if Sennacherib is called the ruler of Assyria and 



