282 Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates. 



golden eggs is every day being killed in Turkey, or 

 at any rate mercilessly robbed, and to its last nest 

 egg. In this way, the peaceful shepherd tribes, 

 though protected from the Anazeh and Shammar, 

 are plundered by the Government, and hardly ap- 

 preciate the change of masters. The AVeldi, a rich 

 tribe t\Yenty years ago when they were tributary to 

 the Anazeh, are now reduced to poverty by the 

 exactions of the Pashalik of Aleppo ; and the 

 Jibtiri, on the Tigris, industrious herdsmen, seem 

 strangely altered in circumstances since Layard 

 lived among them in 1845. The only really pros- 

 perous nomades, at present under Turkish rule, are 

 the Haddadin ; and they, from their connection with 

 the townsmen, may possibly have been respected in 

 the general plunder. It is hardly to be wondered 

 at then that, in view of that which has befallen 

 their poorer neighbours, the great camel-owning 

 tribes, who being always on the move, are out of 

 Government reach, should have hitherto refused all 

 proposals made them of abandoning their wild life. 

 Their power of oftence, indeed, has been much 

 restricted of late years by the garrisoning of the 

 lines of river, and the introduction of " arms of 

 precision " among the Turkish soldiery ; and their 

 old source of wealth, the tribute paid them by the 

 desert towns, has been cut ofi'. But, beyond this, 

 nothino- has Ijeen effected. The Anazeh and 

 Shammar are still as thoroughly independent of the 

 Sultan as the day they first appeared within his 



