Tradition reports that Muawijah overhearing the song, and perhaps tired of the singer, sent her back to her beloved wilds; but we are not told whether in the desert she did not after all sometimes regret the magnificence of Damascus.
Among the best traits of the Bedouins’ character, we must cite their gentleness and generosity. Usually they are a mixture of worldly cunning and great simplicity; fond of a jest, yet solemn and dignified; easily managed by a laugh and a soft word, and pliable after passion, though madly revengeful after injury. Though reckless when their passions are thoroughly roused, their valour is tempered by cautiousness. Their wars are a succession of skirmishes, in which 500 men will retreat after losing a dozen of their number. In this partisan fighting the first charge secures a victory, and the vanquished fly till covered by the shades of night. Then passion or shame prompts them to reprisals, which will probably end in the flight of the former victor. Gain and revenge draw the Arab’s sword; yet, unlike the Irishman who fights for the mere fun of fighting, he must have the all-powerful stimulants of honour and fanaticism to become desperate. The habit of danger in raids and blood feuds, the continual uncertainty of existence, the desert, the chase, his hard life, and the practice of martial exercises, habituate him to look death in the face like a man, and powerful motives will make him a hero.
The ferocity of Bedouin life is softened by his intercourse with the ‘dwellers in houses made of clay,’ who frequently visit and entrust their children to the people of the Black Tents, that they may be hardened by the discipline of the desert. This laudable custom is generally followed by the Sherifs or the descendants of the Prophet residing in Meccah, and even the late Pacha of Egypt gave one of his sons in charge of the Anijah tribe near Akhba, that he might receive a Bedouin education and grow up into a man.
The mild influence of the fair sex likewise tends to soften the nomadic Arab’s character, and to inspire him with chivalrous feelings. In pastoral life tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such circumstances youths will become attached to maidens whom possibly by the laws of the clan they may not marry, and then the lovers have recourse to flight. The fugitives must brave every danger; for revenge, at all times the Bedouin’s idol, now becomes the lode-star of his existence. But the Arab lover will dare all consequences, and stake his life on the possession of her he loves.
Women, indeed, are regarded as inferior beings by their lords and masters, and to them exclusively all the labour and menial offices in the tent are assigned; but in troublous times and in the hour of need, they raise themselves to the level of the stronger sex by physical as well as moral courage. In the early days of Islam, if history be credible, Arabia had many heroines, and within the last century Ghalujah, the wife of a Wahabi chief, opposed Mohammed Ali himself in many a bloody field. After a lost battle a retreating tribe has not unfrequently been again led on to victory by the taunts of its women, and Arab poets praise not only female beauty, but also female faith, purity, and affection.
From ancient periods of the Arab’s history, we find him practising knight-errantry, the wildest but most exalted form of chivalry. The fourth Caliph is fabled to have travelled far, redressing the injured, punishing the injurer, preaching to the infidel, and especially protecting women—the chief end and aim of knighthood. The Caliph El Mutasen heard, in the assembly of his courtiers, that a woman of the Sayyid family had been taken prisoner by a ‘Greek barbarian’ of Ammoria. The man on one occasion struck her, when she cried, ‘Help me, O Mutasen!’ and the fellow said derisively, ‘Wait till he cometh upon his pied steed.’ The chivalrous prince arose, sealed up the wine cup which he held in his hand, took oath to do his knightly duty, and on the morrow started for Ammoria with 70,000 men, each mounted on a piebald charger. Having taken the place he entered it, exclaiming, ‘Here am I at thy call!’ He struck off the caitiff’s head, released the lady with his own hands, ordered the cup-bearer to bring the sealed bowl, and drank from it, exclaiming, ‘Now, indeed, wine is good!’ A Knight of the Round Table could have done no better.
It is the existence of this noble spirit which makes the society of Bedouins so delightful to the traveller, who, after enjoying it, laments at finding himself in the ‘loathsome company’ of Persians, or among Arab townpeople, whose ‘filthy and cowardly minds’ he contrasts with the ‘high and chivalrous spirit of the true Sons of the Desert.’
While over the vast continent of America no effort has ever been made by the aboriginal tribes to establish a dominion over the useful animals, with the single exception of the Llama in the Peruvian highlands, we find the Arab shepherd from time immemorial in the absolute possession of the horse and the camel—of a faithful friend, and a laborious slave. Although the high steppes of Central Asia are probably the genuine and original country of the horse, yet in Arabia that generous animal attains the highest degree of spirit and swiftness. Such is the estimation in which it is held, that the honours and the memory of the purest race are preserved with superstitious care, the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated, and the birth of a noble foal is esteemed among the tribes as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. A colt at the moment of birth is never allowed to drop upon the ground; they receive it in their arms, washing and stretching its tender limbs, and caressing it as they would a baby. The tender familiarity with which the horses are treated, trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. When not employed in war or travelling they loiter about the tents, often going over heaps of children lying on the ground, and carefully picking their steps lest they should hurt them. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop; their sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip; their powers are reserved for the movement of flight and pursuit, but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand and the stirrup, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind, and if their friend be dismounted in the rapid career they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat.
The noble steed of the desert pines and languishes in the crowded town. Its head droops mournfully, it seems the very image of despondency and sloth. And as the animal, so its master. He also appears, not as the bold energetic nomad, but as a listless apathetic wanderer; and, were it not for the glowing eye which restlessly rolls and flashes under its thick brow, you might be inclined to prefer the servile fellah to the sullen child of the desert. But now the Bedouin mounts his horse, and, as if touched by an electric spark, they both of them raise their heads and stretch their sinewy limbs. Slowly they leave the dusty streets, and reach the confines of the desert. Now at length both are at home; now rider and horse melt into one like the fabled Centaurs of old; now, first, the real Bedouin and the real Arabian horse stand before you. Like an arrow ‘shot by an archer strong’ the steed flies towards his master’s tent, his light hoof scarcely leaves a print on the sand; the white burnous of the rider flies about in the wind; with a firm hand he guides the noble animal, and in a few minutes both are lost to sight in the desert.
Though the Arabs justly boast of their horses, it is a common error to suppose them very abundant in that country. In the sacred writings and down to the time of Mohammed, they are seldom mentioned, camels being mostly used both in their predatory and warlike excursions. The breed is limited to the fertile pasture grounds, and it is there that they thrive, while the Bedouins who occupy arid districts rarely have any.