318 SOCIAL STATF OF THE ARABS. 



they balance it for some time over their head, and 

 thrust forwards, or backwards if hard pressed by an 

 enemy. Should a horseman be without a lance, he 

 arms himself with a club or mace, which is made 

 either wholly of iron or w ith a wooden handle. The 

 foot-soldiers sometimes carry a small round target, 

 made of the Avild-ox hide, and covered with iron 

 bars. Some wear iron caps and coats-of-mail, which 

 either cover the whole body to tlie knees, like a long 

 gown, or reach only to the waist. 



The hardy and athletic frame of the Bedouins is 

 to be ascribed in part to their abstemious habits. 

 They are models of sobriety, and never indulge in 

 luxuries except on some festive occasion, or on the 

 arrival of a stranger. Their usual articles of food 

 are rice, pulse, dates, milk, butter, and flour. The 

 coinmon people eat bread made of dhourra, which 

 is coarse and insipid. When they have no gridiron 

 they roll the dough into balls and cook it among 

 embers. They generally eat their bread while hot 

 and only half-baked. Though not strangers to the 

 invention of mills, they grind their flour with the 

 hand, or merely bruise the grain between two stones. 

 The daily and universal dish of the Aenezes is the 

 ai/esh, which is flour and sour camels' milk made into 

 a paste and boiled, l^he hoiirgoul is wheat boiled 

 with some leaven and then dri^d in the sun ; and in 

 this state it is preserved for the w^hole year. Bread 

 is used at breakfast, whicli they bake in round cakes 

 either upon gridirons or on heated stones, over which 

 the dough is spread and immediately covered with 

 glowing ashes ; sometimes the fire is put into glazed 

 earthen pots, and the paste spread over the outside. 

 In some districts they have abundance of poultry 

 and garden-stuffs. Butter is used to excess. It is an 

 ingredient in every dish; all their food swims in it; 

 and they freqiientl}^ swallow a whole cupful before 

 breakfast. The operation of churning is performed 

 in a goat-skin bag, which is tied to the tent-pole or 



