A wedding feast is often prolonged over three days and nights, and is repeated each time the husband takes a fresh wife. An Arab chief is permitted by the law to have four wives at the same time, but even these do not suffice for the gratification of these fickle and voluptuous temperaments. It is in vain that, by a custom which recalls to mind Biblical manners, a Mussulman husband is allowed to associate concubines with his legitimate wives. Even this tolerance is insufficient, and recourse is had to divorce to appease these insatiable and ever craving appetites. Instances have been known of an Arab chief having had a dozen to fifteen lawful wives. As may easily be imagined, peace is far from reigning in households where the law recognizes the existence of such elements of discord. Sometimes the tent is divided into two parts, one chamber being exclusively reserved for the women, the other belonging to the husband, who selects from among his wives the one he fancies for that night. Terrible jealousies secretly spring into being, and, gradually gaining strength, finish by an explosion. Frequently a wife who is preferred to her fellows is seized with a mysterious illness, under which she languishes, fades away, and dies—a poison prepared by a rival's hand has passed into her veins. This is the gloomy side of eastern manners—crime allying itself to lust.
The immense part played by wives in the life of the Mussulmans is shown by the following fact. Tell an Arab that he is a coward, he will submit to the insult—if he is a coward, it is the will of Allah that it should be so. Call him a thief, he will smile; for in his eyes a theft is sometimes a meritorious act. But address him as tahan—a word which the language of Molière could alone translate with concise forcibleness—and you will kindle in his breast a fury that blood only can extinguish. The only man whom an Arab will never forgive is one who can with truth cast in his teeth that ill-omened epithet.
After marriage the noble of the desert enters upon a new life, and upon a sphere of individual action. He is now emancipated, though not in an absolute fashion unless he is the head of the tent, and master of his own goods and chattels, or if his father is still alive. However, even under these circumstances, he henceforth counts among his tribe as a man of action and of counsel, and by accumulated experience he will put the finishing touch to his training as a great lord, thus far sketched out by the habit of seeing good examples and hearing good advice. Already he has his own clients, his own horses, his own greyhounds, his own falcons, and all the equipments for war and the chace. His clients are young men of his own age, the courtiers of his future eminence. His horses have been chosen from among those that bring good fortune, and of the best authenticated descent. His greyhounds have been fed on dates crushed in milk, and on the kouskoussou of his own meals. They have been broken in by himself; and, while the vulgar dogs of the tribe bark all night at the hyænas and jackals, they lie couched at his feet, beneath the tent, and even upon his very bed. His falcons have been reared under his own eyes by his own falconer, and he himself has taken care to accustom them to his cry on throwing them off and on calling them back. Among his hunting and warlike equipments there are guns from Tunis, or Algiers, damascened and mounted in silver, the stocks incrusted with coral or with mother of pearl—sabres from Fez with scabbards of chased silver—and saddles embroidered in gold and silk on a groundwork of velvet or morocco leather. To complete his accoutrements, I may mention the sabretache ornamented with panther's skin, plated spurs incrusted with coral, the medol, or high-crowned broad-brimmed straw hat, with a plume of ostrich feathers, and the malhazema, or cartridge-box of morocco leather pinked with silk, gold, and silver.
At some future days when his father has paid "the contribution levied by Allah on every head," that spacious tent will be his, with all its luxurious furniture, carpets, pillows, jewel-bags, silver cups, and supplies of arms, ammunition, and food for the whole family, consisting of from twenty-five to thirty individuals, including master and servants. His, also will be that stallion and those mares picketed in front of the tent, those eight or ten negroes and negresses, those stores of wheat, barley, dates, and honey prudently placed beyond all danger of a coup de main in a town or village of the desert, those eight or ten thousand sheep, and those five or six hundred camels scattered over the grazing ground, in the care of shepherds who follow their wanderings. His fortune may then be estimated at from twenty-five to twenty-six thousand douros [nearly £6,000].
At the age, however, at which we parted from him, that is, at eighteen or nineteen, he will have no need as yet to trouble himself about the management of this fortune. At present, he is merely a man of pleasure. In time of peace, he goes forth on horseback, accompanied by his friends and followed by his attendants mounted on camels, who hold his greyhounds in leash or even carry them on their saddle-bow, and proceeds to the distant pasturages to inspect his flocks, taking advantage of the opportunity to hunt the ostrich, or the gazelle, or the bekeur el ouhash, according to the nature of the ground and the season of the year. His leisure hours will be especially devoted to the peculiarly aristocratic and lordly pastime of hawking. These violent sports, which I have already described, mould the nobility for the toils of war and the razzia, to which these children of the desert consecrate all the adventurous ardour and energy that enter into their character.
But as he advances in years, the Arab becomes more sedate. Every white hair in his beard leads him to thoughts of a religious nature. He more and more frequents the society of the men of Allah, and loads them with gifts; and more and more rarely he is seen at the chace, at wedding feasts, and the fantasia. His occupations as a chief leave him, besides, much less idle time. He has to administer justice, increase his means, bring up his children, and contract alliances. Nevertheless, the chivalrous spirit of his youth is only slumbering within him. Let the powder speak to redress an insult offered to his tribe, he will not be the one to remain in his tent. Too happy, he will say, to die like a man in battle, and not like an old woman. Some great families loudly boast that there is no tradition of any one of their ancestors having died in his bed. If, however, he escapes that coveted end, as soon as he feels the hand of death upon him, he summons his friends to his bed-side, for the presence of friends is desired at all the great acts of human existence. "My brethren," he will say to them if he be able to speak, "I shall never see you again in this world; but I was only a pilgrim upon the earth, and I die in the fear of Allah." He will then recite the shehada, or symbolical act of the Mussulman faith: "There is only one God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God." If his lips refuse to pronounce these sacred words, one of those present takes his right hand and lifts up the forefinger. This sign, to which the dying man adheres with all the energy still remaining in his earthly tenement, is a testimony offered to the unity of the Deity. After he has accomplished the shehada, he can die in peace.
Funeral ceremonies are not wanting to the Arab chief, especially to a warrior who has fallen in combating for his tribe. He is wrapped in a white shroud, and exposed to view on a carpet, the borders of which have been turned back. The neddabat, that is to say, the women who in the East replace the hired mourners of antiquity, stand round the corpse, their cheeks blackened with smoke, and their shoulders covered with tent-canvass, or with camel-hair sacks. A few paces off, a slave holds by the bridle the favourite mare of the deceased, and from the kerbouss of the saddle hang a long gun, a yatagan, pistols, and spurs. A little further off, the horsemen of the tribe, old and young, in silent sorrow, sit in a circle upon the sand, their haiks held up close to their eyes and the hood of their burnous brought down over their brow. The neddabat chaunt to a melancholy rhythm the following lamentations:
Where is he?
His horse has come, but he has not come;