i88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 589 



with me, Hamid and Abderrabbu, were fond of calling 

 themselves slaves of the Shereef. The title was one of 

 honour, not of contempt. These conditions neutralise, 

 or at least modify, some of the most serious moral 

 objections to slavery. The slave is not without self- 

 respect, and he is not without prospects of bettering 

 himself in life sufficient to stimulate him to exertion 

 and good conduct. But, of course, there are many 

 exceptions to the favourable conditions I have described. 

 Slaves employed in field work or as boatmen and these 

 form a large class are less favourably situated. Though 

 a slave is generally well treated, he is not always so, and 

 the means of redress which exist in theory are not always 

 effectual in practice. The worst masters are the Bedouins. 

 I have seen a slave boy starving in the streets of Jeddah, 

 who had been brought into town by his Bedouin master 

 and deserted. He was brought in by the police to omar 

 Naseef Pasha, and an order was given to feed him at the 

 charge of his master. The most notoriously cruel masters 

 are the pearl fishers, who keep slaves to dive for them, 

 and treat them with great harshness. However, apart 

 from the question of direct maltreatment, more serious 

 objections to the slave system remain behind. The best 

 that can be said for the system is that, under favourable 

 conditions, the slave is treated very much as a child, 

 and that the temperament of the Arabs, habitually easy 

 and humane, except when fired by cupidity or revenge, 

 renders favourable conditions frequent. But when one 

 looks upon the slave in the relations of a full-grown man, 

 and especially when female slavery is taken into account, 

 the position appears much less satisfactory. A slave 

 can marry, or rather his master can make a match for 

 him, and cannot dissolve the tie. But as a matter of 

 fact, slaves seldom are married, though it is not uncommon 

 for a master to free his mamlook and find him a wife. 

 The great blot of the system lies in female slavery, with 

 its accompaniment of concubinage, which in the towns 



