To the advantages of a genius for poetry, and a lively fancy, the Bedouins add the possession of a rich and harmonious language capable of expressing every shade of meaning and every variety in the aspects of nature. Its copiousness[10] may be inferred from the fact that it can boast of no less than eighty expressions for honey, two hundred for a serpent, five hundred for a lion, and, characteristic of a warlike race, above a thousand for a sword. Fastidious critics have admitted the remarkable delicacy of the Arabic tongue, and its energetic sublimity, equally adapted to the simple pathos of love and elegy, the piquancy of satire or the loftiest efforts of popular oratory.
In casting a retrospective view over the manners and habits of the Bedouins we are struck with the strange contradictions they exhibit both in their social and moral character. The spirit of patriotism among them is strong and universal, yet they have no home but the pathless waste and wretched tent. They are a nation of brothers, yet live continually at war, jealous of their honour and yet stooping to the meanness of theft; fierce and sanguinary in their temper, and yet alive to the virtues of pity and gratitude; covetous and by no means of good faith in pecuniary transactions, yet true to their pledged word and charitable to the needy.
Their religious character is marked by the same irreconcilable extremes. Their fanaticism is coupled with a lax observance of the precepts and ceremonies of Islam. In a pleasant indifference about the precepts of the Koran, they remark that the religion of Mohammed never could have been intended for them. ‘In the desert,’ say they, ‘we have no water; how, then, can we make the prescribed ablutions? We have no money, and how can we bestow alms? Why should we fast in the Rhamadan since the whole year with us is one continual abstinence; and if the world is the house of Allah why should we go to Meccah to adore him?’
The almost absolute independence of the Arabs and of that noble race, the North American Indians of a former generation, has produced many similarities between them. ‘Both,’ says Captain Burton, ‘have the same wild chivalry, the same fiery sense of honour, and the same boundless hospitality; love elopements from tribe to tribe, the blood feud and the vendetta. Both are grave and cautious in demeanour, and formal in manner—princes in rags or paint. The Arabs plunder pilgrims, the Indians backwood settlers; both glory in forays, raids, and cattle-lifting, and both rob according to certain rules. Both are alternately brave to desperation and shy of danger. Both are remarkable for nervous and powerful oratory, and for the use of figurative language. Both, addicted to war and to the chase, despise all sedentary occupations. But the Bedouin claims the superiority over the red Indian by his treatment of women, his greater development of intellect, and the grand page of history which he has filled.’
BAOBAB TREES AT MANAAR.
CHAPTER XII.
GIANT TREES AND CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION.
General Remarks—The Baobab—Used as a Vegetable Cistern—Arborescent Euphorbias—The Dracæna of Orotava—The Sycamore—The Banyan—The sacred Bo-Tree of Anarajapoora—The Teak Tree—The Saul—The Sandal Tree—The Satinwood Tree—The Ceiba—The Mahogany Tree—The Mora—Bamboos—The Guadua—Beauty and multifarious Uses of these colossal Grasses—Firing the Jungle—The Aloes—The Agave americana—The Bromelias—The Cactuses—The Mimosas—Bush-ropes—Climbing Trees—Emblems of Ingratitude—Marriage of the Fig Tree and the Palm—Epiphytes—Water Plants—Singularly-shaped Trees—The Barrigudo—The Bottle Tree—Trees with Buttresses and fantastical Roots—The Mangroves—Their Importance in Furthering the Growth of Land-Animal Life among the Mangroves—‘Jumping Johnny’—Insalubrity of the Mangrove Swamps—The Lum Trees with formidable Spines.
Wherever in the tropical regions periodical rains saturate the earth, vegetable life expands in a wonderful variety of forms. In the higher latitudes of the frozen north, a rapidly evanescent summer produces but few and rare flowers in sheltered situations, soon again to disappear under the winter’s snow; in the temperate zones, the number, beauty, and variety of plants increases with the warmth of a genial sky; but it is only where the vertical rays of an equatorial sun awaken and foster life on humid grounds that ever-youthful Flora appears in the full exuberance of her creative power. It is only there we find the majestic palms, the elegant mimosas, the large-leafed bananas, and so many other beautiful forms of vegetation alien to our cold and variable clime. While our trees are but sparingly clad with scanty lichens and mosses, they are there covered with stately bromelias and wondrous orchids. Sweet-smelling vanillas and passifloras wind round the giants of the forest, and large flowers break forth from their rough bark, or even from their very roots.