GOVERNMENT OF ARABIA. 157 



might aspire to the supreme power, and were in- 

 trusted with a certain share of authority. More 

 than twenty inferior tribes hved in a state of subjec- 

 tion to them, who all, in the event of war, joined 

 the troops of the principal chief. 



The rich plains of Mesopotamia, once cultivated 

 and populous, are now inhabited, or rather desolated, 

 by wandering Arabs under their respective sheiks, 

 who, if they knew to concentrate their strength, 

 might set tlie Ottoman governors at defiance. The 

 Beni Khasaal are agriculturists, and have a great 

 many petty tribes subject to them, some of which 

 are again subdivided into thirty or forty inferior 

 clans. They can muster a force of 2000 cavalry, 

 and a proportionate number of infantry. The Beni 

 Temin and Beni Tai roam between Bagdad and 

 Mosul, paying a small annual tribute for their As- 

 syrian possessions. The whole extent of country, 

 including the frontiers of Persia almost to the source 

 of the Euphrates, the Hauran or Syrian Desert, Pal- 

 estine, the peninsula of Sinai, the greater part of 

 Nejed, and the central wilderness of Arabia, are oc- 

 cupied by migratory hordes of Bedouins. To detail 

 all the names and minor branches of these tribes 

 would be to fill our pages with a barbarous nomen- 

 clature. Burckhardt, who stands so honourably dis- 

 tinguished as an oriental traveller, has not only 

 enumerated their various classes, but furnished a 

 minute account of their local establishments and 

 military force, as well as of their extraordinary cus- 

 toms, manners, arts, and institutions.* 



The most celebrated and powerful tribe, perhaps, 

 in the whole Arabian peninsula, is that of the 

 Aenezes. In winter they generally take up their 

 quarters on the plain between the Hauran and Hit, a 

 position on the Euphrates ; though sometimes they 

 pass that limit and pitch their tents in Irak. In 



* Burckhardt's Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 2 vols. 

 Vol. II.— 



