2)S Bedouin Tribes of the Ettpliratcs. [ch. xyh. 



is a chain of siicli little villao;es at irreoular intervals 

 all along tlie foot of the hills from Damascns to the 

 Euphrates, oases one may call them. Of these, 

 Tudmur is the most important. Their existence 

 must have begun in ancient times as halting-places 

 on the Palmyra road, and they were very likely of 

 importance then, but now they represent only just 

 the value of the land their springs can irrigate. 

 Like all the villages bordering on the desert, they 

 are dreary to the last degree, every blade of grass 

 and every stick of brushwood having been devoured 

 for miles round them. It is at or near Arak, how- 

 ever, that Mohammed tells us his ancestor the 

 23rophet is buried, and he will not admit that it is 

 not an important place. Mohammed ibn Hanafiyeh 

 ibn Ali ibn Abu-Taleb, — such is the holy man's 

 name who converted Arak, then a Kafir town, to 

 Islam, and from whom our Mohammed AbdaUah 

 claims descent. 



The only interest these little desert villages 

 have is, that they give one a good idea of what 

 the towns in Central Arabia must be like. I fancy 

 there is no clifierence between them and the vil- 

 lages of the Jof, or indeed of any part of Arabia. 

 The population, though not quite pure, is mainly 

 composed of real Arabs, and has little in common 

 w4th that of the Syrian towns beyond the language. 

 Mohammed tells us that several of the best families 

 here and at Tudmur came from the Beni Laam, one 

 branch of which is settled beyond Bagdad, and 



