Futhaem—ten men.
Arabs are generally thin meagre figures, though possessing expressive and sometimes handsome features, great violence of gesture and muscular action. Irritable and fiery, they are unlike the dwellers in towns and cities: noisy and loud, their common conversational intercourse appears to be a continual strife and quarrel; they are, however, brave, eloquent, and deeply sensible of shame. I have known an Arab of the lower class refuse his food for days together, because in a skirmish his gun had missed fire: to use his own words, “Gulbi wahr,” “My heart aches;” “Bindikti kedip hashimtni gedam el naz;” “My gun lied, and shamed me before the people.” Much has been said of their want of cleanliness; I should, however, without hesitation, pronounce them to be much more cleanly than the lower order of people in any European country. Circumcision, and the shaving the hair from the head, and every other part of the body; the frequent ablutions which their religion compels them to perform; all tend to enforce practices of cleanliness. Vermin, from the climate of their country, they, as well as every other person, must be annoyed with; and although the lower ranks have not the means of frequently changing their covering (for it scarcely can be called apparel), yet they endeavour to free themselves as much as possible from the persecuting vermin. Their mode of dress has undergone no change for centuries back; and the words of Fenelon will at this day apply with equal truth to their present appearance[8].
The fondness of an Arab for traditional history of the most distinguished actions of their remote ancestors is proverbial: professed story-tellers are ever the appendages to a man of rank: his friends will assemble before his tent, or on the platforms with which the houses of the Moorish Arabs are roofed, and there listen, night after night, to a continued history for sixty, or sometimes one hundred nights together. It is a great exercise of genius, and a peculiar gift, held in high estimation amongst them. They have a quickness and clearness of delivery, with a perfect command of words, surprising to a European ear: they never hesitate, are never at a loss; their descriptions are highly poetical, and their relations exemplified by figure and metaphor, the most striking and appropriate: their extempore songs are also full of fire, and possess many beautiful and happy similes. Certain tribes are celebrated for this gift of extempore speaking and singing; the chiefs cultivate the propensity in their children; and it is often possessed, to an astonishing degree, by men who are unable either to read or write.
Arabic songs go to the heart, and excite greatly the passions: I have seen a circle of Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment, and bursting with loud laughter; at the next, melting into tears, and clasping their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy.
Their attachment to pastoral life is ever favourable to love. Many of these children of the desert possess intelligence and feeling, which belong not to the savage; accompanied by an heroic courage, and a thorough contempt of every mode of gaining their livelihood, except by the sword and gun. An Arab values himself chiefly on his expertness in arms and horsemanship, and on hospitality.
Hospitality was ever habitual to them. At this day, the greatest reproach to an Arab tribe is, “that none of their men have the heart to give, nor their women to deny.” Nor does this feeling of liberality alone extend to the chiefs, or Arabs of high birth: I have known the poor and wandering Bedouin to practise a degree of charity and hospitality far beyond his means, from a sense of duty alone.
Notwithstanding all the savageness of an Arab, there are sometimes noble thoughts which seem to cross over his powerful mind; and then again to leave him choked up with weeds of too strong a growth to be rooted out.
The M’Garha sheikhs were, after the defeat of Waled Suleyman, all taken into the bashaw’s service; and are now amongst his most faithful and favoured followers. Abdi Zeleel ben Seffenusser, upon his submission, had been assigned some portion of his grandsire’s extensive lands at Sebha in Fezzan; and on his being ordered to repair with a certain number of camels to Mourzuk, and to accompany the Sultan of Fezzan into the negro country, he was reported to have delayed obeying the order: his enemies attributed his reluctance to disaffection and want of courage. The bashaw’s judgment was summary; and Hamet Ghreneim, the brother of my chaoush, was despatched with a letter to Abdi Zeleel, and orders to stab him while he read it, and return with his head. The M’Garha had five hundred miles to ride, previous to executing his bloody commission; and, by his account to me, it was the sixteenth of the same kind that he had been intrusted with: he seldom failed either in the execution or in receiving the reward, which always follows: “they were his master’s orders—with Bis milla! (in God’s name) he struck, and struck home!” His victim, in this case, was of more consequence than any of his former ones, and his reward would have been greater in proportion: Hamet was withal the descendant of the old enemy of his clan; but there was still some magic in the name of the Seffenusser. They were a race of heroes—cowardice could not be a crime for any of the blood to be guilty of; and the chance of being strangled on his return appeared to him preferable to assassinating Abdi Zeleel, and he determined on hesitating before he executed the bashaw’s orders. On arriving at the hut of the Arab chief, notwithstanding his fallen state, friends enough remained to warn him of his approaching fate: he met Hamet at the door, kissed the signet of the bashaw, and desired him to perform his office; adding, “You are a M’Garha, and an enemy to our house.” “I am,” replied the other, “and therefore not capable of assassinating a Seffenusser: if you are guilty, fly—mine be the risk.”
Cowardice is ever visited in an Arab by the most disgraceful punishments; he is often bound, and led through the huts of the whole tribe, with the bowels and offal of a bullock, or some other animal, tied round his head; and amongst a people who only desire to be rich in order to increase the number of their wives, probably the greatest punishment of all is, that could even any woman be found who would receive him as a husband, which would be an extraordinary circumstance, no Arab would allow him to enter into his family with such a stain on his character as cowardice.
The amor patriæ discoverable in even the wildest inhabitant of the most barren rock is not felt by the wandering Arab, or the Moor. He wanders from pasture to pasture, from district to district, without any local attachment; and his sole delight is a roving, irregular, but martial life. I have met with several, mostly Moors of Mesurata and Sockna, who have made three times the pilgrimage to Mecca; visited severally all the ports in the Red Sea; had been in Syria, from St. Jean d’Acre to Antioch; had traded to Smyrna and Constantinople, visiting Cyprus, Rhodes, and most of the islands in the Archipelago; had penetrated to the west of Nyffe, in Soudan, and every other part of the black country; had been two or three times stripped and robbed of every thing in the Negro country, escaping only with life, after receiving several wounds. Some of them had not seen their families for fifteen or twenty years, yet were still planning new expeditions, with as much glee as if they were just beginning life, instead of tottering on the brink of death.