en. XXVI.] Bedouin Morals. 



--D 



so little coiiJcmnccl there, are considered by the 

 Bedouins pre-eminently shameful. I do not think, 

 incredible as it may sound to English ears, that the 

 Bedouin exists who, if trusted with money by a 

 friend, would misemploy it. The Weldi and Had- 

 dadin are entrusted every winter by the citizens of 

 Aleppo and Mosul with thousands of sheep, for 

 which they account satisfactorily in the spring to 

 their owners. The Bedouin system of joint owner- 

 ship in a mare would be impossible in a country 

 where honesty between man and man was not a 

 general rule. In all the tribes, it constantly happens 

 that widows and orphans succeed to considerable 

 properties in camels and sheep, but nobody supposes 

 them to be in any particular dangerofsufiering wrong 

 at the hands of their relations. The Agheyl are pro- 

 verbial for their unimpeachable honesty ; and there 

 is no man among them who might not be trusted 

 with large suras of money. That there are rogues 

 in the desert is probable, but dishonesty is not, as 

 in modern Europe, the rule. It is the very rare 

 exception. The thieves for the most part hang 

 together, and form small tribes apart from the rest ; 

 these are composed of men Avho have been turned 

 out by their fellows, and of whom nothing good 

 can be expected. In the large tribes persons of 

 known dishonesty are not tolerated. 



In the same way injustice on the part of those in 

 power is almost impossible. Public opinion at once 

 asserts itself ; and the sheykh, who should attempt 



