SOCIAL STATE OF THE ARABS. 381 



tory. All the Bedouins throughout Arabia are en- 

 tirely ignorant of letters. The Wahabee chief took 

 pains to instruct them, by establishing schools in 

 every village of Nejed, and obliging parents to su- 

 perintend the education of their children. Deraiah 

 was made an attractive seat for learned ulemas, by 

 collecting valuable libraries from all parts of the 

 country ; but in spite of every effort these warlike 

 tribes still remain, as might be expected, a most il- 

 literate race. Among a people so superstitious as the 

 Arabs no science is so much cultivated as astrology, 

 which is held in high repute. Though the Koran 

 expressly forbids the prying into futurity by any 

 form of divination, yet a Moslem seldom concludes 

 a bargain without consulting the stars. 



In a country where there are so few patients, it can- 

 not be expected that the healing art should be much 

 studied, or held in great esteem. The common prac- 

 titioners know little more than the use of simples, 

 and the technical terms, such as they find them in 

 the books of Avicenna. Physicians are obliged to 

 act as chemists, apothecaries, surgeons, farriers, and 

 cattle-doctors ; and yet, with all this variety of em- 

 ployments, they can scarcely earn a livelihood. If 

 the sick man die they get no reward ; and this 

 custom has taught them to use many petty and 

 disgraceful artifices to obtain payment beforehand. 

 There is not a single individual of this profession in 

 the whole of Nejed. The natives cure themselves, 

 and their mode of treatment is sufficiently rude. 

 They heal sabre- wounds by applying raw flesh taken 

 from a camel newly killed. In bowel-complaints 

 they have recourse to senna. For headach, colic, 

 and sore eyes, the most approved remedy is a redhot 



VOL. II. 2 A 



