SCOUTS OF THE DESERT.
Several years ago I spent, some time with Arabs in North Africa, in Tunisia and Algeria, and I found them first-rate fellows, They were very fond of any kind of adventurous sport, and were hospitable and courteous.
Numbers of them used to come out with their dogs to help me to find game, and after a long day's beating in the thorn bush and high grass, when we finished hunting, they used to shake hands and go off home, quite happy if I had had a good day, and not expecting or seeking for a tip or a reward as is so generally the case, I am sorry to say, in England. Men here seem to think that they ought to be paid for every blessed thing they do.
The Arab chiefs, too, were kindly hosts, they gave me the best of food, generally a sort of Irish stew of chickens and rice, and made me comfortable in their own tents at night under their blankets.
They are very clean people, very brave, very courteous and very honourable. So they are true Scouts of the Desert. They have a number of little camp customs which Scouts ought to know—and many of them are like those practised by scouts.
Arabs are always very strict in saluting each other.
The custom of saluting came, as you know, from the old times, when everybody carried weapons, and the act of raising the right hand on meeting another man was meant to show that you had not got a weapon in that hand, and were therefore a friend.
It is exactly the same to this day with the Zulus and other South African tribes, who carry clubs and assegais; on meeting each other they pass their weapons into the left hand, and raise their right to show that it is empty, and that therefore they don't mean to fight you.
So it is, too, with the Arabs.
If a horseman meets a man on foot, the horseman salutes first, because he is in the more powerful position, and it is only fair that the man on foot should therefore have his weapon ready till he knows that the mounted man is friendly.