1/8 Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, [en. xxiv. 



pasturage and, though ultimately ruined, managed 

 at one time to gain considerable advantages. On 

 the pretext of a conference they inveigled the Sham- 

 mar chiefs to their tents, and while they were eating 

 slew them there. This great crime is still remem- 

 bered throughout the desert in the saying " Beyt el 

 Modli heyt el A-ib." {" The tent of the Moali is the 

 tent of shame.") 



Nevertheless, at the end of twenty years the 

 Shammar conquest was complete, and the Moali 

 were reduced to the last extremity ; but then a new 

 invader appeared upon the scene, and at once turned 

 the fortune of the war. This was the Anazeh, 

 another tribe of the Nejd, who, hearing the report of 

 the rich pastures acquired by their predecessors, had 

 come to share in the spoils. The Moali sided at once 

 with the new comers, and together they drove the 

 Shammar across the Euphrates. These, finding in 

 Mesopotamia a still richer land before them than 

 what they had lost, abandoned the " Syrian " desert 

 to the Anazeh, subdued the Tai, and eventually 

 crossing the Tigris carried their raids to Mosul and 

 the Persian frontier. The towns on the Tigris were 

 treated as those on the Euphrates had been, and 

 even Bagdad itself was threatened. 



It is strange that during the progress of these start- 

 ling events the Ottoman Government seems to have 

 looked on in apathy, and made no effort to control 

 the invaders. The Pashas of Mosul and Bagdad 

 contented themselves with mendino; the w^alls of 



