another in the wars of adjacent tribes."-ROBINSON. See Bozrah in Hauran.

"AND he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."-Gen. xvi. 12.

"And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly: twelve princes shall he beget and I will make him a great nation."-Gen. xvii. 20.

"If any people in the world afford in their history an instance of high antiquity, and of great simplicity of manners, the Arabs surely do. Coming among them, one can hardly help fancying one's self suddenly carried backwards to the ages which succeeded immediately after the flood. We are here tempted to imagine ourselves among the old patriarchs, with whose adventures we have been so much amused in our infant days. The language, which has been spoken from time immemorial, and which so nearly resembles that which we have been accustomed to regard as of the most distant antiquity, completes the illusion.

"The most natural authority is that of a father over his family... When the survivors of the human race settled themselves anew, after the flood, every family readily submitted to the guidance and direction of him to whom they owed their existence. As those families multiplied, the younger branches still retained some respect for the eldest branch, which was esteemed the nearest to the parent stem; and although the subdivisions became more and more numerous, they still regarded themselves as composing but one body, in remembrance of their common origin. Such an assemblage of families, all sprung from the same stock, forms what we call a tribe; and the representative of the eldest branch retained somewhat of the primary paternal authority over the whole tribe to which he belonged. Sometimes, when a family became too numerous, it divided from the rest with which it was connected, and formed a new tribe. Upon other occasions, when several tribes found themselves separately too weak to resist a common enemy, they would combine, and acknowledge one common chief; and sometimes it would happen, that a numerous tribe might force some others that were weaker to unite themselves to, and become dependent upon it.

"This primitive form of government, which has ever subsisted without alteration among the Arabs, proves

the antiquity of this people, and renders their present state more interesting than it would otherwise be. Among the Bedouin, or pastoral Arabs, it is preserved in all its purity. They live in tents, and have many shiekhs, each of whom governs his family with power almost absolute. All the shiekhs, however, who belong to the same tribe, acknowledge a common shiekh, who is called 'shiekh of shiekhs.'

"It is the difference in their ways of living that constitutes the distinctions which characterise the different tribes. The genuine Arabs disdain husbandry, as an employment by which they would be degraded. They maintain no domestic animals but sheep and camels, except perhaps horses. Those tribes which are of a pure Arab's race, live on the flesh of their buffaloes, cows, and horses, and on the produce of some little ploughing.

"The former tribes, distinguished as noble by their possession of camels, are denominated Abu el Abaar; and the second, Moædan. These latter transport their dwellings from one country to another, according as pasturage fails them; so that a village often rises suddenly in a situation where, on the day before, not a hut was to be seen.

"The genuine Bedouins (wandering Arabs), living always in the open air, have a very acute smell. They dislike cities on account of the foetid exhalations produced about them. They cannot conceive how people, who regard cleanliness, can bear to breathe so impure air. I have been assured, by persons of undoubted veracity, that some Bedouins, if carried to the spot from which a camel has wandered astray, will follow the animal by smelling its track, and distinguish the marks of its footsteps by the same means, from those of any other beasts that may have travelled the same way. Those Arabs who wander in the desert will live five days without drinking, and discover a pit of water by examining the soil and plants in its environs."

"The Arabs settled in cities, and especially those in the sea-port towns, have lost somewhat of their distinctive national manners by their intercourse with strangers; but the Bedouins, who live in tents, and in separate tribes, have still retained the customs and manners of their earliest ancestors, and have never been

subdued by any conqueror. They are the genuine Arabs, and exhibit, in the aggregate, all those characteristics which are distributed respectively among the other branches of their nation. The title of Sheikh among the Bedouins belongs to every noble, whether of the highest or the lowest order. Their nobles are very

numerous.

"No two things can differ more than the education of the Arabs from that of the Europeans. The former strive as much to hasten the age of maturity as the latter to

retard it. The Arabs are never children; but many Europeans continue children all their life.

"In Arabia, boys remain in the Harem, among the women, till the age of five or six, and during this time follow the childish amusements suitable to their years; but as soon as they are removed from that scene of frivolity they are accustomed to think and speak with gravity, and to pass whole days together in their father's company, at least if he is not in a condition to retain a preceptor, who may form them. The young Arabs, in consequence of being always under the eyes of persons advanced to maturity, become pensive and serious even in infancy.

"Yet, under this air of gravity and recollection, the nation have in reality a great vivacity in their hearts.

"This vivacity in the Arabians makes them fond of company and of large assemblies, notwithstanding their seeming seriousness. They frequent public coffee-houses and markets, which are so numerous through Yemen, that every village, of any considerable magnitude, has a weekly market. When the villages lie at too great a distance, the country-people meet in the open fields, some to buy or sell, and others to converse, or amuse themselves as spectators of the busy scene. Artisans travel through the whole week from town to town, and work at their trade in the different markets.

"The Arabs are not quarrelsome; but, when any dispute happens to arise among them, they make a great deal of noise.

"The Arabs shew great sensibility to everything that can be construed into an injury.

"But the most irritable of all men are the Bedouin sheikhs. If one sheikh says to another, with a serious air, Thy bonnet is dirty,' or, The wrong side of thy turban is out,' nothing but blood can wash away the reproach; and not merely the blood of the offender, but that also of all the males of his family.

They thirst for vengeance itself, likewise, in the