I may say at once, that my experience has quite shaken my belief (if I ever held it) in the usual notion that:
“East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”
The great mysteries of the East are the mysteries of all humanity, and as you may scratch the Russian and find a Tartar, so you may scratch an “Eastern” and find,—just a man, much like the rest of us.
When we meet our friend we generally see a tall, well-made man, light in build but strong and active, often good-looking, with a pleasant and self-respecting expression. He may rise as we pass, to shew respect, but offers no salutation unless his superior should salute first. If we speak to him he will address us respectfully, yet as an equal, first shaking hands as he would to one of his own nation. If he is not a very poor man, or engaged in manual labour, he is probably much more gracefully dressed than we are, in the folds of yards of calico looped about his person, leaving arms and neck free. True his hair, a great fuzzy mop, plastered with mutton fat, looks a trifle ridiculous and even unclean, but Burton e.g. has, after experience, much to say in favour of a free use of grease in a tropical climate. Or he may wear a turban, which appears more dignified to European eyes, being more familiar.
He displays his freedom, his membership of a desert community, not only by his self-reliant look, but by his always carrying arms. As we meet him, his camel has been tethered[15] before the shop where he is obtaining provisions, and his sword, shield, or spear given into the merchant’s keeping, our mountaineer retaining only a dagger, stuck into a loose heavy leather belt, or having its sheath bound round his arm, just above the elbow. The former dagger is generally a curved blade nine inches or so long, the latter a small broad dagger with a plain round handle. The sheaths are very ornamental, bearing embossed patterns and strips of green leather among the brown.
Neither is he anything but proud of the evidences of his religion and superstitions. There may be a circular patch of dust in the middle of his forehead, where he touched the ground, bowing in prayer, and his amulets, paper charms wrapped up in little square leather cases worn as a necklace, or, more often, tied round the arm immediately above the elbow, and his string of prayer beads, are his principal ornaments. He may wear a ring or two, on his fingers, and a narrow band round his arm, both of silver, while a thin curved skewer, of hard wood or ibex horn, thrust through his hair, completes his adornment.
In conversation we find him generally intelligent, rarely surly or ill-behaved. Having self-respect himself he appreciates and returns politeness, and is not so foolish as to interpret it as weakness. In travelling through the desert any dusty old man will expect you to give a friendly greeting, and the news, and smile upon you as a friend. Unfortunately the language is rather a stumbling-block, as many natives are not fluent in Arabic, and few British know the Hamitic speech. However, for a friendly salutation Arabic (or perhaps any language!) will suffice anywhere.
An introduction to a woman is not so easily arranged. Though the women are only partially secluded, and are not veiled, even if one knows the husband, sons, and brothers of a family quite well, the women shew a distinct reserve. One knows their character largely through complaints brought by their husbands, for not only does the British lord of a desert village become their father in name, but he is dragged at intervals into the consideration of intimate family concerns. Also in no country can “Cherchez la femme” be a better motto for investigating any dispute. They appear in the background of every lawsuit and complaint, even if it at first seems to concern men alone, and when men would let a doubtful claim go by, it is the women who insist on their rights, as keenly on fancied as on real, and send their men before the magistrate.
Plate X
