cii. XXIV.] Tabic of Population. 1S7 



tolerable safety from Aleppo to Bagdad by the 

 Euphrates road, and from Damascus to Deyr. But 

 except along these lines the Bedouins still hold 

 their own, and, although our safe passage through 

 then- territory has proved, that travelling in Meso- 

 potamia, even without escort, is not so impossible as 

 many suppose, yet a party of Bagdad merchants so 

 journeying would hardly have l;)een permitted to 

 pass unmolested. The vast majority of travellers 

 still prefer the roundabout but securer route through 

 Diarbekr and Mosul.'"' 



As to the comparative numbers of the Shammar 

 and the Anazeh, I have always heard the same pro- 

 portion given, three to seven ; I therefore take it to 

 be correct, though the actual figures mentioned by 

 my informants have ranged from thousands to tens 

 of thousands. With the numbers themselves it is 

 more difficult to deal. But, keeping the proportion 

 above given, and allowing for all exaggerations, I 

 think twelve thousand or twelve thousand five 

 hundred Shammar to tJiirty thousand Anazeh tents 

 will not be very far from the truth. This, at four 

 persons to a tent, would give fifty thousand to one 

 hundred and twenty thousand souls in all. 



The followinor is a table of the Shammar tribes as 



o 



given me by a committee of Arabs, Bedouin and 



* "While I write the following news reaches me :— " Aleppo 

 July 30. Both banks of the Euphrates are unsafe. A caravan 

 was robbed of £3000 the other day near Mieddin." 



