156 CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS 



Some of them were entirely occupied in agricul- 

 ture, while others added to the toils and pursuits of 

 a sedentary hfe a taste for pillage ; and divided 

 their number so, that while one part attended to do- 

 mestic labours, the others were engaged in war and 

 plunder. Such was their condition until overrun by 

 the Romans, whose dominion effaced the last ves- 

 tiges of their industry, laid their cities in ruins, and 

 reduced their territories to a state of desolation 

 from which they have never recovered. Though 

 these half-civilized tribes shared with their wild 

 clansmen in the interior the same warlike propensi- 

 ties, they had not the same facilities of withdrawing 

 from danger ; consequently their liberty was more 

 precarious. When assailed by the neighbouring na- 

 tions, they could purchase security only by submis- 

 sion or tribute,— which was always exacted, whether 

 the sovereigns of the East or the West were their 

 masters. Among the nations that paid this ransom 

 to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, are mentioned the 

 ^rabs— evidently the pastoral tribes of which we 

 are speaking — who paid annually 7700 sheep, and as 

 many goats (2 Chron. xvii. 11). It was the danger 

 or the necessity of yielding to the mercenary power 

 of tyrants, that confirmed the nomadic Arabs m 

 their dislike of settled habitations. The ChevaUer 

 D'Arvieux observes, that their attachment to the 

 wandering life proceeded from their notion that it 

 was more congenial to liberty ; since the shepherd 

 who ranges the desert with his herds will be far less 

 liable or likely to submit to oppression than the pro- 

 prietor of houses and lands. A passage in Diodorus 

 shows how ancient and deeply rooted Avas this mode 

 of thinking among the Bedouins. "The Naba- 

 theeans," as he calls them, "were prohibited by 

 their laws from sowing, planting, drinking wme, and 

 building houses. Every violation of this statute, 

 he adds, " was punishable by death." The same 

 was the case with the Rechabites, an Arab tribe men- 



