THE ARABIAN FAMILY. 19 



The habits of the Arab are strictly pastoral and wandering. His tent is his 

 home, and he perpetually varies its location as his wants or caprice may prompt 

 him. 



The moral character of this race blends some very opposite elements ; they 

 are the children of impulse, at one moment raising the sword against the unresist- 

 ing traveller, and the next receiving, with open hospitality, the stranger whose 

 necessities have driven him to their tents. They are indolent excepting in their 

 wars and pastimes, and remarkable for their covetousness and duplicity. Vanity 

 is characteristic of all classes, from the chief of a tribe to the humblest Bedouin. 

 Their politeness is extreme, and sobriety is a national trait. 



Their intellectual character is conspicuous for a fertile imagination, and the 

 successful cultivation of music, poetry and romance. 



The migratory disposition of the Arabians has led to their dispersion over 

 countries very remote from the parent land, so that at the present time Arabia 

 does not contain a twentieth part of the descendants of Ishmael. Africa has 

 always been one of their favorite retreats, and history records three principal 

 irruptions, at distant periods from each other. The first was that of the Canaan- 

 ites who were expelled by Joshua, and established themselves in northern Africa, 

 and were the Mauri of the ancients ; the second migration took place in the 

 first century of the Christian era, and the third and last great influx was in the 

 seventh and eighth centuries, by the Mahometan Arabs. 



The Moors who inhabit the present kingdom of Morocco, and other parts of 

 Africa, are in part descended from the Mauri, and partly from the Saracens who 

 were expelled from Spain, together with the intruding Arabs of the different 

 epochs. But the term Moor is used in Barbary to designate the inhabitant of a 

 town or city, while Arab is the collective designation of the wandering tribes of 

 this family. The Moors are of the middle stature, with complexions varying 

 from black to white, owing to their intercourse with the negroes of Sudan. The 

 women of Fez, however, are fair as Europeans, with uniformly dark eyes and 

 hair. Those of Mequinez are even more beautiful, with remarkable grace and 

 suavity of manner. 



The men of Duquella have regular features, and are tall and well limbed : 

 those of Temensa and Shawia, are a strong, robust race, of a copper color.* The 

 nomadic Arab tribes live chiefly in tents; they are a restless and turbulent people, 

 who are engaged in constant broils with each other, and with the adjacent Berbers 



* Jackson, Morocco, p. 128. *,^m. ed. 



