ARAB CAMP. 
303 
discourse was not lost on each other. Having entered, I sat 
down by my host; and the whole of the persons present, to far 
beyond the boundaries of the tent, (the sides of which were 
open,) seated themselves also ; without any regard to those more 
civilised ceremonies of subjection, — the crouching of slaves, or 
the standing of vassalage. These persons, in rows beyond rows, 
appeared just as he had described; the offspring of his house, 
the descendants of his fathers, from age to age ; and like brethren, 
whether holding the highest or the lowest rank, they seemed 
to gather round their common parent. But perhaps their sense 
of perfect equality in the mind of their chief, could not be more 
forcibly shewn, than in the share they took in the objects which 
appeared to interest his feelings ; and as I looked from the 
elders, or leaders of the people, seated immediately around him, 
to the circles beyond circles of brilliant faces bending eagerly 
towards him and his guest, (all, from the most respectably clad, 
to those with hardly a garment covering their active limbs, 
earnest to evince some attention to the stranger he bade wel¬ 
come,) I thought I had never before seen so complete an 
assemblage of fine and animated countenances, both old and 
young; nor could I suppose a better specimen of the still exist¬ 
ing state of the true Arab ; nor a more lively picture of the 
scene which must have presented itself, ages ago, in the fields 
of Haran, when Tereh sat in his tent door, surrounded by his 
sons, and his sons’ sons, and the people born in his house. The 
venerable Arabian sheik was also seated on the ground, with a 
piece of carpet spread under him ; and, like his ancient Chal¬ 
dean ancestor, turned to the one side and to the other, graciously 
answering, or questioning the groups around him, with an 
interest in them all, which clearly shewed the abiding simplicity 
