:88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 527 



meat is the rule, but two other methods of cooking are 

 known in the desert. One is to cut the meat in slices 

 and broil them on hot stones, the other to improvise an 

 oven by digging a hole, in which, when it has been raised 

 to a glowing heat, the meat is laid and covered with stones 

 and embers. I have seen it argued that boiling is the 

 most ancient form of Semitic cookery, but the other 

 methods which I have mentioned seem at least equally 

 primitive, though from a very early date boiling seems 

 to have been the commoner process among the Hebrews 

 as well as the Arabs. When I am on the subject, I shall 

 add one or two other notes about the meals of the Arabs. 

 Beef is almost never eaten, and is thought unwholesome. 

 Among the Bedouins the slaughter of a sheep takes place 

 only on festival occasions, or on the arrival of a guest. 

 Ordinarily the staple of diet is milk, with dates or such 

 cereal food as can be obtained, and the only meat eaten 

 is game, especially the flesh of the gazelle. Our men 

 could have gone on for a long time on their diet of Areeka, 

 but I was expected to give them a sheep when occasion 

 offered, and a cauldron to boil it in could be procured. In 

 a village there is generally at least one professional butcher 

 who is ready to kill and cut up a sheep, receiving as his 

 hire the head, skin, and offal. To save themselves trouble 

 our men used to call in this functionary, but they could 

 have done the work equally well themselves. In the 

 towns, there is, of course, a much greater variety of 

 food than is known in the desert, and the Bedouins, 

 when forced by famine to betake themselves to the cities, 

 are very loath to accommodate themselves to the strange 

 diet. They have a peculiar contempt for vegetables, 

 and members of a tribe who have settled down to agri 

 cultural life are stigmatised by their nomad brethren as 

 Khodhar eaters of green things. I may notice two 

 points in which our dinner at Wady Fatima differed from 

 the usage of the towns. The great dish was set, not on 

 a stool, but directly on the ground, and the ewer and basin 



