The Sabeans
We are still in the dark concerning the history of the Sabeans, a people of Semitic origin who profess Christianity. That they once formed a powerful nation is attested by numerous ruins and inscriptions. This state began to decline in the first century of the Christian era and had completely disappeared by 500 A.D. They call themselves Mendai and are often known by the name of Christians of St. John. The community is small, numbering hardly 3,000 souls, mostly goldsmiths and boatbuilders who ply their trade in the Arab encampments of the Amara and Muntefik sanjaks in the vilayet of Basra. They talk a Semitic dialect and dress like the Arabs, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished. Their original homeland is believed to have been Yemen.
Fig. 64—Kurd children of the Armenian borderland. The poverty of the land is reflected in their appearance no less than in the arid background of the photograph.
Fig. 65—A family of sedentary Arabs in Mesopotamia.
Fig. 66—In the desert of Syria. A tribe of Anezeh Arabs moving from an exhausted pasture to a fresh one.