1 62 Bedouin Tribes of the Eiiplwates. [ch.xxhi. 



tlirouoji Palmyra a barrier to its tribes. It is time, 

 therefore, that the imaginary line traced by ancient 

 geographers should disappear from our maps. 



Northern Arabia at the present day embraces 

 the whole district between Syria and Persia, and 

 extends northwards as far as latitude 37^, the lati- 

 tude of Orfa and Mardin. IMesopotamia, Irak, and 

 the plains north of Palmyra, are now in every re- 

 spect part of Arabia, forming, with the Hamad, a sin- 

 gularly homogeneous whole, uniform in its physical 

 features and in the race which inhabits it. The 

 Shammar, the Anazeh, and the Montefik tribes are 

 as purely Arabian as their kinsmen of Nejd, and 

 the villagers of the Euphrates and the Jof as those 

 of the Hejaz and Yemen. It is probable, indeed, 

 that the o-reat camel-ownino- tribes of the Northern 

 Deserts represent the ancient civilization of Arabia 

 far more closely than do the Mussulman popula- 

 tion of the south, and are more nearly connected 

 in thought and manners with the patriarchs of 

 primaeval history, from whom both claim to 

 descend. Be this as it may, Arabia has no other 

 limits now than those of the desert. 



The physical features of the desert are those of a 

 vast plain, or succession of plains and plateaux, so poor 

 in soil and so scantily watered, that no cultivation 

 is possible within its hmits except by irrigation. 



Its surface has at one time been, in all likelihood, 

 the bed of an inland sea, for the surface soil is still 

 composed in part of a layer of shingle, in part of 



