[p.144]travellers would have believed the police to be nearer than convenient to us.
Presently we drew rein, and exchanged our pace for one more seasonable, whilst the sun began to tell on man and beast. High raised as we were above the ground, the reflected heat struck us sensibly, and the glare of a macadamized road added a few extra degrees of caloric.[FN#5] The Badawin, to refresh themselves, prepare to smoke. They fill my chibuk, light it with a flint and steel, and cotton dipped in a solution of gunpowder, and pass it over to me.[FN#6] After a few puffs I return it to them, and they use it turn by turn. Then they begin to while away the tedium of the road by asking questions, which passe-temps is not easily exhausted; for they are never satisfied till they know as much of you as you do of yourself. They next resort to talking about victuals; for with this hungry race, food, as a topic of conversation, takes the place of money in happier lands. And lastly, even this engrossing subject being exhausted for the moment,
[p.145]they take refuge in singing; and, monotonous and droning as it is, their Modinha has yet an artless plaintiveness, which admirably suits the singer and the scenery. If you listen to the words, you will surely hear allusions to bright verdure, cool shades, bubbling rills, or something which hereabouts man hath not, and yet which his soul desires.
And now while Nassar and his brother are chaunting a duet,-the refrain being,
"W'al arz mablul bi matar,"
"And the earth wet with rain,"-
I must crave leave to say a few words, despite the triteness of the subject, about the modern Sinaitic race of Arabs.
Besides the tribes occupying the northern parts of the peninsula, five chief clans are enumerated by Burckhardt.[FN#7] Nassar, and other authorities at Suez, divided them into six, namely:-
1. Karashi, who, like the Gara in Eastern Arabia, claim an apocryphal origin from the great Koraysh tribe. 2. Salihi, the principal family of the Sinaitic Badawin. 3. Arimi: according to Burckhardt this clan is merely a sub-family of the Sawalihahs. 4. Sa'idi. Burckhardt calls them Walad Sa'id and derives them also from the Sawalihahs. 5. Aliki ; and lastly, the 6. Muzaynah, generally pronounced M'zaynah. This clan claims to be an off-shoot from the great Juhaynah tribe inhabiting the coasts and inner barrens about Yambu'. According to oral tradition, five persons, the ancestors of the present Muzaynah race, were forced by a blood-feud to fly their native country. They landed at the Shurum,[FN#8] or creek-ports, and have now spread themselves
[p.146]over the Eastern parts of the so-called "Sinaitic" peninsula. In Al-Hijaz the Muzaynah is an old and noble tribe. It produced Ka'ab al-Ahbar, the celebrated poet, to whom Mohammed gave the cloak which the Ottomans believe to have been taken by Sultan Salim from Egypt, and to have been converted under the name of Khirkah Sharif, into the national Oriflamme.
There are some interesting ethnographical points about these Sinaitic clans-interesting at least to those who would trace the genealogy of the great Arabian family. Any one who knows the Badawin can see that the Muzaynah are pure blood. Their brows are broad, their faces narrow, their features regular, and their eyes of a moderate size; whereas the other Tawarah[FN#9] (Sinaitic) clans are as palpably Egyptian. They have preserved that roundness of face which may still be seen in the Sphinx as in the modern Copt, and their eyes have that peculiar size, shape, and look, which the old Egyptian painters attempted to express by giving to the profile, the form of the full, organ. Upon this feature, so characteristic of the Nilotic race, I would lay great stress. No traveller familiar with the true Egyptian eye,-long, almond-shaped, deeply fringed, slightly raised at the outer corner and dipping in front like the Chinese,[FN#10]-can ever mistake it. It is to be seen in half-castes, and, as I have before remarked, families originally from the banks of the Nile, but settled for generations in the Holy Land of Al-Hijaz, retain the peculiarity.