146 Bedoiiin Tribes of the Euphrates, [ch. xxi. 



last came down almost over our heads, and we had 

 to get up, so I said good-bye, and Ghiowseh pro- 

 mised the child should not forget me. 



The last thing loaded by Ibn Shaalan's people was 

 the xittfa, a gigantic camel howda, used by the 

 Koala whenever they expect a pitched battle, and 

 then only. It is a huge cage of bamboo covered 

 with ostrich featliers, and probably as old as the 

 date of their first coming from Nejd, for ostriches 

 are not found, I believe, north of Jebel Shammar. 

 A delul carries the idtfa^ in which a girl is placed, 

 whose business it is to sing during the fight, and en- 

 courage the combatants by her words.* She needs 

 to be stout-hearted as well as stout-lunged, for the 

 battle generally groups itself round her, in attack 

 and defence. The Roala have a superstitious feeling 

 about her defence, and the enemy a corresponding 

 desire to capture her, for it is a belief that with 

 the loss of the iittfa the Roala tribe would perish. 

 Formerly, each large Bedouin tribe had one of 

 these, but now, perhaps from a scarcity of ostrich 

 feathers and the difficulty of renewing them, the 

 iitfj'a and the custom attached to it have dis- 

 appeared, except among the Roala and, I believe, 

 the Ibn Haddal.f To-day it was carried empty on 

 the back of a fine she- camel. 



* This TJttfa figures in the fantastic description of the forty 

 days' battle given by Fatalla Sayeghir, and justly ridiculed by 

 Mr. Palgrave. 



t Mr. Palgrave mentions its existence among the Ajman, a tribe 

 esat of Jebel Shammar. 



