John Macgregor, while on the upper Jordan in his canoe Rob Roy, was taken prisoner by the Arabs. As he parleyed with the old shaykh in his tent, Macgregor opened a box of fine salt and proffered a pinch of it to his captor. The shaykh had never before seen salt so white and fine, and, therefore, thinking it was sugar, he tasted it. Instantly Macgregor put a portion also into his own mouth, and with a loud, laughing shout he clapped the old shaykh on his back.
The shaykh was dumbfounded. His followers wondered what had happened. "'What is it?' all asked from him. 'Is it sukker?' He answered demurely, 'La, meleh!' ("No, it's salt!") Even his home secretary laughed at his chief." "We had now eaten salt together," says Macgregor, "and in his own tent, and so he was bound by the strongest tie, and he knew it." The result was that Macgregor and his canoe were carried back in triumph to the river, and speeded on their way, while the people on the banks shouted "salaams" to their brother in the covenant of salt.[30]
Salt alone is a basis of an enduring covenant, but bread alone is not so. Yet bread and salt may be such a basis, because there is salt as well as bread there. So commonly does salt go with bread that it is the exception when they are not together. Our English Bible asks, at Job 6: 6, "Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?" But the Septuagint reads: "Can bread be eaten without salt?"[31]
In India it is much the same as in Arabia, Palestine, and Persia. In the Mahabharata, the great treasure-house of Hindoo wisdom, the covenant of bread and salt finds specific recognition. When Krishna urges the hero Karna to join with him in the war against the Kauravas, he says to him: "If you will accompany me and join the Pandavas, they will all respect you as their elder brother, and exalt you to the sovereignty." But Karna cannot be persuaded to this treacherous course, although he knows that to be true will cost him his life. "I have seen bad omens," he says, "and I know I shall be slain; but I have eaten the bread and salt of the Kauravas, and I am resolved to fight on their side."[32]
Again, when Yudhishthira asked permission of Bhishma and Drona to fight against the Kauravas, they granted his request, and at the same time said: "We fight on the side of the Kauravas because for many years we have eaten their bread and salt, or otherwise we would have fought for you."[33]
In Madagascar also the covenant of salt is known, as in other parts of the East.[34] And thus on every continent and on the islands of the sea.