CHAPTEK XXA'I. 



" There is hoije of a tree, if it be cut doTrn, that it will sprout again, and 

 that the tender branches thereof will not cease " * * But man dieth, and 

 waateth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? " — Job. 



Eeligion of the Bedouins confined to a belief in God— They have 

 no ceremonial observances — Their oaths — They are "without 

 belief in a future life — Their superstitions are fevr — Their 

 morality an absolute code — Their marriages. 



With the single exception of a belief in God, 

 inlieritecl from the earliest times, the Bedouins pro- 

 fess no religions creed whatever ; neither have they, 

 it may almost be said, any superstitions. No peojDle 

 in the world take less account of the supernatural 

 than they do, nor trouble themselves so little with 

 metaphysics. 



Their belief in God is of the simplest kind. It 

 hardly extends beyond the axiom that God exists ; 

 and, if, as some have affirmed, they connect the idea 

 of Him with the sun or with the heavens, no trace 

 of such an opinion has come under my notice, 

 '' God is God," they say, and it very simply ex- 

 presses all that they know of Him, AVho and what 

 and where He is, has not, I should think, ever been 

 so much as discussed among them. Of a divine 

 revelation they seem to have no traditions, nor of 

 any law divinely instituted. God is the fate to 

 which all must bow, the cause of the good and of 



