My companions three,
Were fishing by the sea;
The Arabs captured one,
The Koords took his brother,
In one land was I,
My friends were in another.
I was left to moan,
In sorrow deep and sad,
Like a camel all alone,
Departing to Baghdad;
My soul I beg you tell me whether,
Once parted friends e'er met together?
The Bedawin have as low an idea of girls as the Bedawin in the cities, and are very glad when a boy is born. Sometimes when the Abeih girls are playing together, you will hear a little girl call out, "it is very small indeed. Why it is a little wee thing, as small as was the rejoicing the day I was born!" But hear what the Bedawin women sing when a boy is born:
Mashallah, a boy, a boy!
May Allah's eye defend him!
May she who sees and says not the Name,
Be smitten with blindness and die in shame!
How would you like to live among the Bedawin, and have a dusky Arab woman, clad in coarse garments, covered with vermin and odorous of garlic and oil, to sing you to sleep on a mat on the ground?
Hasten my cameleer, where are you going?
It is eventide, and the camels are lowing:
My house in a bundle I bear on my back,
Whenever night comes, I my bundle unpack.
The next is a song of the pastoral Arabs:
Hasten my guide and lead us away,
For we have fought and lost the day;
To the well we went all thirsty and worn,
The well was dry! and we slept forlorn.
The Bedawin came in battle array,
Attacked us all famished at break of day
And took all our camels and tents away!
Death enters the Bedawin tents as well as the palaces of kings and the comfortable homes of the people in Christian lands. But what desolation it leaves behind in those dark sorrowing hearts, who know nothing of the love of Jesus and the consolations of the gospel. This is a funeral song the poor Bedawin women sing over the death of a child: