GOVERNMENT OF THE SHERIFFS. 173 



other parts of Arabia, and acknowledge most of the 

 sheriffs of Yemen and Hejaz as their distant rela- 

 tions. Tliey delight in arms and ciyl broils ; and 

 have a singular custom, which was practised in the 

 days of INIohammed, of sending eveiy male child 

 eight days after its birth to the tent of some neigh- 

 bouring Bedouin, where he is brought up with the 

 children for eight or ten years, or till he is able to 

 manage a mare, M^hen the father takes him home. 

 During the whole of this period, except a short visit 

 in his sixth month, the boy never sees his parents, 

 nor enters the town ; nor is he in any instance left 

 longer than thirty days after his birth in the hands 

 of his mother. By this hardy education he becomes 

 familiar with all the perils and vicissitudes of the 

 desert life ; his body is inured to fatigue and priva- 

 tion ; and he acquires an influence among the 

 Bedouins which afterward becomes of much im- 

 portance to him. He acquires for his foster-parents 

 ill the affection of relationship ; and sometimes the 

 sheriff boys steal away from their own homes to 

 rejoin the friends and associates of their infancy. 



At Mecca, and in ever)?" town throughout Hejaz, 

 justice is administered by the cadi. The fees are 

 enormous, and generally swallow up one-fourth of 

 the sum in litigation. The most barefaced acts of 

 corruption, bribery, and oppression occur daily in 

 the Mehkames (halls of judgment), and these dis- 

 orders are countenanced by the Turkish sultan, who 

 had long been in the habit of paying the judges 100 

 purses per annum out of his treasury, in consider- 

 ation of the emoluments he received from the office. 

 In lawsuits of importance, the muftis of the four 

 orthodox sects have considerable influence on the 

 decisions. 



Within the dominions of the sheriff" are compre- 

 hended, as has already been noticed, the cities of 

 Mecca, Medina, Yembo, Taif, .Jidda, Gonfode, Hali, 

 and several other places less considerable. 



