GOVERNMENT OP ARABIA. 179 



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, 

 Palestine, the peninsula of Sinai, the greater part 

 of Nejed, and the central wilderness of Arabia, are 

 occupied by migratory hordes of Bedouins. To de- 

 tail 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 

 distinguished 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 Ae- 

 nezes. In winter they generally take up their quar- 

 ters 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 

 spring they approach the Syrian frontier, and form 

 a line of encampment, extending from near Aleppo 

 to eight days' journey southward of Damascus. 

 The whole summer they spend in seeking pasture 

 and water ; in autumn they purchase their winter 



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



