peculiar manner in which murder is prosecuted here. They think little of making an assassin be punished, or even put to death, by the hand of justice; for this would be to deliver a family from an unworthy member, who deserved no such favour at their hands.

"For these reasons the Arabs rather revenge themselves, as law allows, upon the family of the murderer, and seek an opportunity of slaying its head or most considerable person, whom they regard as being properly the person guilty of the crime, as it must have been committed through his negligence in watching over the conduct of those under his inspection. In the meantime the judges seize the murderer, and detain him till he has paid a fine of two hundred crowns. Had it not been for this fine, so absurd a law must have long been repealed. From this time the two families are in continual fears, till some one or other of the murderer's family be slain. No reconciliation can take place between them, and the quarrel is still occasionally renewed. There have been instances of such family feuds lasting forty years. If, in the contests, a man of the murdered person's family happens to fall, there can be no peace till two others of the murderer's family have been slain.

"I should not have been persuaded of the existence of this detestable custom had I not seen instances of it. Men, indeed, act everywhere in direct contradiction to the principles of religion; and this species of revenge is not merely impious, but even absurd and inhuman. An Arabian of distinction, who often visited us at Loheya, always wore, even when he was in company, both his poniards and a small lance. The reason of this, he told us, was, that a man of his family had been murdered, and he was obliged to avenge the murder upon a man of the inimical family, who was then actually in the city, and carried just such another lance. He acknowledged to us, that the fear of meeting his enemy, and fighting with him, often disturbed his sleep."-NIEBUHR's Arabia.

"The strict honesty of the Bedawîn among themselves is proverbial, however little regard they may have to the right of property in others. If an Arab's camel dies on the road, and he cannot remove the load, he only draws a circle in the sand round about, and leaves it. In this way it will remain safe and untouched for months. In passing through a (valley)... we saw a

black tent hanging on a tree; Tuweileb said it was there when he passed the year before, and would never be stolen."-ROBINSON'S Researches.

In his account of his journey to Mount Sinai, Mr. Stephens writes :-"We were moving along a broad valley, bounded by ranges of lofty and crumbling mountains, forming an immense rocky rampart on each side of us; and rocky and barren as these mountains

seemed, on their tops were gardens which produced oranges, dates, and figs, in great abundance. Here, on heights almost inaccessible to any but the children of the desert, the Bedouin pitches his tent, pastures his sheep and goats, and gains the slender subsistence necessary for himself and his family; and often, looking

up the bare side of the mountain, we could see on its summit's edge the wild figure of a half-naked Arab, with his long matchlock gun in his hand, watching the movements of our little caravan. Sometimes, too, a woman was seen stealing across the valley, not a traveller or passer-by, but a dweller in the land where no smoke curled from the domestic hearth, and no sign of a habitation was perceptible. . . Not far from the track

we saw, hanging on a thorn-bush, the black cloth of a Bedouin's tent, with the pole, ropes, pegs, and everything necessary to convert it into a habitation for a family. It had been there six months; the owner had gone to a new pasture-ground, and there it had hung, and there it would hang, sacred and untouched, until he returned to claim it. 'It belongs to one of our tribe, and cursed be the hand that touches it,' is the feeling of every Bedouin. Uncounted gold might be exposed in the same way; and the poorest Bedouin, though a robber by birth and profession, would pass by, and touch it not. On the very summit of the mountain, apparently ensconced behind it as a wall, his body not more than half visible, a Bedouin was looking down upon us; and one of my party, who had long kept his face turned that way, told me that there was the tent of his father. I talked with him about his kindred and his mountain home, not expecting, however, to discover anything of extraordinary interest or novelty. The sons of Ishmael have ever been the same inhabitants of the desert, despising the dwellers under a roof, wanderers and wild men from their birth, with their hands against every man, and every man's hand against them. The principal and distinguishing traits of the Bedouin character have long been known; but as I expected to see them in their tents, and be thrown among different tribes, claiming friendship from those who were enemies to each other, I was curious to know the details of their lives and habits; and I listened with exceeding interest while the young Bedouin, with his eyes constantly fixed upon it, told me that for more than four hundred years the tent of his fathers had been in that mountain. Wild and unsettled, robbers and plunderers as they are, they have laws which are as sacred as our own; and the tent, and the garden, and the little pasture-ground are transmitted from father to son for centuries. I have probably forgotten more than half of our conversation; but I remember he told me that all the sons shared equally;

that the daughters took nothing; that the children lived together; that if any of the brothers got married, the property must be divided; that the sisters must remain with the brothers until they (the sisters) are married. I asked him, if the brothers did not choose to keep a sister with them, what became of her; but he did not understand me. I repeated the question, but still he

did not comprehend it, and looked to his companions for an explanation. And when at last the meaning of my question became apparent to his mind, he answered with a look of wonder, It is impossible-she is his own blood.' I pressed my question again and again, in various forms, but it was so strange an idea, that to the last he did not fully comprehend it, and his answer was