154 CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS 



their flocks to the same springs and the same pas- 

 tures. It is in the lonely wilderness and the rugged 

 mountains that his attachments centre ; because it 

 is there he can live without ceremony and without 

 control. 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. The tent he 

 regards as the nursery of every noble quality, and 

 the desert the only residence worthy of a man who 

 aspires to be the unfettered master of his actions. 

 He cannot imagine how existence can be endured, 

 much less enjoyed, except in a dwelling, of goats' 

 hair, which he can pitch and transplant at pleasure. 

 These are privileges which he would not exchange 

 for rubies. His steril sands are dearer to him than 

 the spicy regions of the south ; and he would con- 

 sider the security of cities but a poor compensation | 

 for the loss of his independence. It was an ancient I 

 proverb, of which the Arabs made their boast, that | 

 God had bestowed on their nation four precious 

 gifts. He had given them turbans instead of dia- 

 dems, tents in place of walls and bulwarks, swords 

 instead of intrenchments, and poems instead of writ- 

 ten laws. . „ 

 This state of uncontrolled existence has m all 

 ages been the object of their wishes and their pride ; 

 and it never has been renounced without profound 

 regret. Abulfeda has preserved a very lively trait 

 of this feehng in the complaint of Maisuna, an Arab 

 - lady married to one of the caliphs of Damascus. 

 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 native 

 wilderness. Hex solitary hours were consumed in 

 melancholy musings ; and her greatest dehght was 

 in singing the simple pleasures she had enjoyed in 

 the desert. The modern Bedouins decline the shel- 



