1. Ghamid al-Badawy (of the nomades), 30,000. 2. Ghamid al-Hazar (the settled), 40,000. 3. Zahran, 38,000. 4. Benu Malik, 30,000. 5. Nasirah, 15,000. 6. Asir, 40,000. 7. Tamum, * 8. Bilkarn, * * together, 80,000. 9. Benu Ahmar, 10,000. 10. Utaybah, living north of Meccah: no number given. 11. Shuabin. 12. Daraysh, 2000. [p.123] 13. Benu Sufyan, 15,000. 14. Al-Hullad, 3000.
It is evident that the numbers given by this traveller include the women, and probably the children of the tribes. Some exaggeration will also be suspected.
The principal clans which practise the pagan Salkh, or excoriation, are, in Al-Hijaz, the Huzayl and the Benu Sufyan, together with the following families in Al-Tahamah:
1. Juhadilah. 2. Kabakah. 3. Benu Fahm. 4. Benu Mahmud. 5. Saramu (?) 6. Majarish. 7. Benu Yazid.
I now take leave of a subject which cannot but be most uninteresting to
English readers.
[FN#1] In Holy Writ, as the indigens are not alluded toonly the Noachian race being describedwe find two divisions: 1 The children of Joktan (great grandson of Shem), Mesopotamians settled in Southern Arabia, from Mesha (Musa or Meccah?) to Sephar (Zafar), a Mount of the East,Genesis, x. 30: that is to say, they occupied the lands from Al-Tahamah to Mahrah. 2. The children of Ishmael, and his Egyptian wife; they peopled only the Wilderness of Paran in the Sinaitic Peninsula and the parts adjacent. Dr. Aloys Sprenger (Life of Mohammed, p. 18), throws philosophic doubt upon the Ishmaelitish descent of Mohammed, who in personal appearance was a pure Caucasian, without any mingling of Egyptian blood. And the Ishmaelitish origin of the whole Arab race is an utterly untenable theory. Years ago, our great historian sensibly remarked that the name (Saracens), used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger sense, has been derived ridiculously from Sarah the wife of Abraham. In Gibbons observation, the erudite Interpreter of the One Primaeval Language,the acute bibliologist who metamorphoses the quail of the wilderness into a ruddy goose,detects insidiousness and a spirit of restless and rancorous hostility against revealed religion. He proceeds on these sound grounds to attack the accuracy, the honesty and the learning of the mighty dead. This may be Christian zeal; it is not Christian charity. Of late years it has been the fashion for every aspirant to ecclesiastical honours to deal a blow at the ghost of Gibbon. And, as has before been remarked, Mr. Foster gratuitously attacked Burckhardt, whose manes had long rested in the good-will of man. This contrasts offensively with Lord Lindsays happy compliment to the memory of the honest Swiss and the amiable eulogy quoted by Dr. Keith from the Quarterly (vol. xxiii.), and thus adopted as his own. It may seem folly to defend the historian of the Decline and Fall against the compiler of the Historical Geography of Arabia. But continental Orientalists have expressed their wonder at the appearance in this nineteenth century of the Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai and the India in Greece[;] they should be informed that all our Eastern students are not votaries of such obsolete vagaries. [FN#2] This is said without any theory. According to all historians of long inhabited lands, the advenaewhether migratory tribes or visitorsfind indigens or [Greek]. [FN#3] They are described as having small heads, with low brows and ill-formed noses, (strongly contrasting with the Jewish feature), irregular lines, black skins, and frames for the most part frail and slender. For a physiological description of this race, I must refer my readers to the writings of Dr. Carter of Bombay, the medical officer of the Palinurus, when engaged on the Survey of Eastern Arabia. With ample means of observation he has not failed to remark the similarity between the lowest type of Badawi and the Indigens of India, as represented by the Bhils and other Jungle races. This, from a man of science who is not writing up to a theory, may be considered strong evidence in favour of variety in the Arabian family. The fact has long been suspected, but few travellers have given their attention to the subject since the downfall of Sir William Jones Indian origin theory. I am convinced that there is not in Arabia one Arab face, cast of features and expression, as was formerly supposed to be the case, and I venture to recommend the subject for consideration to future observers. [FN#4] Of this Mesopotamian race there are now many local varieties. The subjects of the four Abyssinian and Christian sovereigns who succeeded Yusuf, the Jewish Lord of the Pit, produced, in Al-Yaman, the modern Akhdam or Serviles. The Hujur of Al-Yaman and Oman are a mixed race whose origin is still unknown. And to quote no more cases, the Ebna mentioned by the Ibn Ishak were descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan, who expelled the Abyssinian invader. [FN#5] That the Copts, or ancient Egyptians, were Half-caste Arabs, a mixed people like the Abyssinians, the Gallas, the Somal, and the Kafirs, an Arab graft upon an African stock, appears highly probable. Hence the old Nilotic race has been represented as woolly-headed and of negro feature. Thus Leo Africanus makes the Africans to be descendants of the Arabs. Hence the tradition that Egypt was peopled by AEthiopia, and has been gradually whitened by admixture of Persian and Median, Greek and Roman blood. Hence, too, the fancied connection of Aethiopia with Cush, Susiana, Khuzistan or the lands about the Tigris. Thus learned Virgil, confounding the Western with the Eastern Aethiopians, alludes to
Usque coloratos Nilus devexus ad Indos.
And Strabo maintains the people of Mauritania to be Indians who had come with Hercules. We cannot but remark in Southern Arabia the footprints of the Hindu, whose superstitions, like the Phoenix which flew from India to expire in Egypt, passed over to Arabia with Dwipa Sukhatra (Socotra) for a resting place on its way to the regions of the remotest West. As regards the difference between the Japhetic and Semitic tongues, it may be remarked that though nothing can be more distinct than Sanscrit and Arabic, yet that Pahlavi and Hebrew (Prof. Bohlen on Genesis) present some remarkable points of resemblance. I have attempted in a work on Sind to collect words common to both families. And further research convinces me that such vocables as the Arabic Taur [Arabic] the Persian Tora [Persian] and the Latin Taurus denote an ancient rapprochement, whose mysteries still invite the elucidation of modern science. [FN#6] The Sharif families affect marrying female slaves, thereby showing the intense pride which finds no Arab noble enough for them. Others take to wife Badawi girls: their blood, therefore, is by no means pure. The worst feature of their system is the forced celibacy of their daughters; they are never married into any but Sharif families; consequently they often die in spinsterhood. The effects of this custom are most pernicious, for though celibacy exists in the East it is by no means synonymous with chastity. Here it springs from a morbid sense of honour, and arose, it is popularly said, from an affront taken by a Sharif against his daughters husband. But all Arabs condemn the practice. [FN#7] I use this word as popular abuse has fixed it. Every Orientalist knows that Badawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Badawi, an ism al-nisbah, or adjective derived from Badu, a Desert. Some words notoriously corrupt, says Gibbon, are fixed, and as it were naturalised, in the vulgar tongue. The word Badawi is not insulting, like Turk applied to an Osmanli, or Fellah to the Egyptian. But you affront the wild man by mistaking his clan for a lower one. Ya Hitaymi, for instance, addressed to a Harb Badawi, makes him finger his dagger. [FN#8] This coarseness is not a little increased by a truly Badawi habit of washing the locks with[Arabic]. It is not considered wholly impure, and is also used for the eyes, upon which its ammonia would act as a rude stimulant. The only cosmetic is clarified butter freely applied to the body as well as to the hair. [FN#9] Kurun ([Arabic]) properly means horns. The Sharifs generally wear their hair in Haffah ([Arabic]), long locks hanging down both sides of the neck and shaved away about a fingers breadth round the forehead and behind the neck. [FN#10] This traveller describes the modern Mesopotamian and Northern race, which, as its bushy beardunusual feature in pure Arab blooddenotes, is mixed with central Asian. In the North, as might be expected, the camels are hairy; whereas, in Al-Hijaz and in the low parts of Al-Yaman, a whole animal does not give a handful fit for weaving. The Arabs attribute this, as we should, to heat, which causes the longer hairs to drop off. [FN#11] Magnum inter Arabes et Africanos discrimen efficit [Greek]. Arabum parvula membra sicut nobilis aequi. Africanum tamen flaccum, crassum longumque: ita quiescens, erectum tamen parum distenditur. Argumentum validissimum est ad indagandam Egyptorum originem: Nilotica enim gens membrum habet Africanum. [FN#12] Whereas the Saxon thumb is thick, flat, and short, extending scarcely half way to the middle joint of the index. [FN#13] A similar unwillingness to name the wife may be found in some parts of southern Europe, where probably jealousy or possibly Asiatic custom has given rise to it. Among the Maltese it appears in a truly ridiculous way, e.g., dice la mia moglie, con rispetto parlando, &c., says the husband, adding to the word spouse a saving your presence, as if he were speaking of something offensive. [FN#14] Dr. Howe (Report on Idiotcy in Massachusetts, 1848,) asserts that the law against the marriage of relations is made out as clearly as though it were written on tables of stone. He proceeds to show that in seventeen households where the parents were connected by blood, of ninety-five children one was a dwarf, one deaf, twelve scrofulous, and forty-four idiotstotal fifty-eight diseased! [FN#15] Yet the celebrated Flying Childers and all his race were remarkably bred in. There is still, in my humble opinion, much mystery about the subject, to be cleared up only by the studies of physiologists. [FN#16] This sounds in English like an Irish bull. I translate Badu, as the dictionaries do, a Desert. [FN#17] The Sharbat Kajari is the Acquetta of Persia, and derives its name from the present royal family. It is said to be a mixture of verdigris with milk; if so, it is a very clumsy engine of state policy. In Egypt and Mosul, Sulaymani (the common name for an Afghan) is used to signify poison; but I know not whether it be merely euphuistic or confined to some species. The banks of the Nile are infamous for these arts, and Mohammed Ali Pasha imported, it is said, professional poisoners from Europe. [FN#18] Throughout the world the strictness of the Lex Scripta is in inverse ratio to that of custom: whenever the former is lax, the latter is stringent, and vice versa. Thus in England, where law leaves men comparatively free, they are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities, unknown in the land of tyrannical rule. This explains why many men, accustomed to live under despotic governments, feel fettered and enslaved in the so-called free countries. Hence, also, the reason why notably in a republic there is less private and practical liberty than under a despotism. The Kazi al-Arab (Judge of the Arabs) is in distinction to the Kazi al-Shara, or the Kazi of the Koran. The former is, almost always, some sharp-witted greybeard, with a minute knowledge of genealogy and precedents, a retentive memory and an eloquent tongue. [FN#19] Thus the Arabs, being decidedly a parsimonious people, indulge in exaggerated praises and instances of liberality. Hatim Tai, whose generosity is unintelligible to Europeans, becomes the Arab model of the open hand. Generally a high beau ideal is no proof of a peoples practical pre-eminence, and when exaggeration enters into it and suits the public taste, a low standard of actuality may be fairly suspected. But to convince the oriental mind you must dazzle it. Hence, in part, the superhuman courage of Antar, the liberality of Hatim, the justice of Omar, and the purity of Laila and Majnun under circumstances more trying than aught chronicled in Mathilde, or in the newest American novel. [FN#20] At the battle of Bissel, when Mohammed Ali of Egypt broke the 40,000 guerillas of Faisal son of Saud the Wahhabi, whole lines of the Benu Asir tribe were found dead and tied by the legs with ropes. This system of colligation dates from old times in Arabia, as the Affair of Chains (Zat al-Salasil) proves. It is alluded to by the late Sir Henry Elliot in his Appendix to the Arabs in Sind,a work of remarkable sagacity and research. According to the Beglar-Nameh, it was a custom of the people of Hind and Sind, whenever they devote themselves to death, to bind themselves to each other by their mantles and waistbands. It seems to have been an ancient practice in the West as in the East: the Cimbri, to quote no other instances, were tied together with cords when attacked by Marius. Tactic truly worthy of savages to prepare for victory by expecting a defeat! [FN#21] Though differing in opinion, upon one subject, from the Rev. Mr. Robertson, the lamented author of this little work, I cannot refrain from expressing the highest admiration of those noble thoughts, those exalted views, and those polished sentiments which, combining the delicacy of the present with the chivalry of a past age, appear in a style
As smooth as woman and as strong as man.
Would that it were in my power to pay a more adequate tribute to his memory! [FN#22] Even Juno, in the most meaningless of idolatries, became, according to Pausanias (lib. ii. cap. 38), a virgin once every year. And be it observed that Al-Islam (the faith, not the practice) popularly decided to debase the social state of womankind, exalts it by holding up to view no fewer than two examples of perfection in the Prophets household. Khadijah, his first wife, was a minor saint, and the Lady Fatimah is supposed to have been spiritually unspotted by sin, and materially ever a virgin, even after giving birth to Hasan and to Hosayn. [FN#23] There is no objection to intermarriage between equal clans, but the higher will not give their daughters to the lower in dignity. [FN#24] For instance: A certain religious man was so deeply affected with the love of a kings daughter, that he was brought to the brink of the grave, is a favourite inscriptive formula. Usually the hero sickens in consequence of the heroines absence, and continues to the hour of his death in the utmost grief and anxiety. He rarely kills himself, but sometimes, when in love with a pretty infidel, he drinks wine and he burns the Koran. The hated rival is not a formidable person; but there are for good reasons great jealousy of female friends, and not a little fear of the beloveds kinsmen. Such are the material sentiments; the spiritual part is a thread of mysticism, upon which all the pearls of adventure and incident are strung. [FN#25] It is curious that these pastoral races, which supply poetry with namby-pamby Colinades, figure as the great tragedians of history. The Scythians, the Huns, the Arabs, and the Tartars were all shepherds. They first armed themselves with clubs to defend their flocks from wild beasts. Then they learned warfare, and improved means of destruction by petty quarrels about pastures; and, finally, united by the commanding genius of some skin-clad Caesar or Napoleon, they fell like avalanches upon those valleys of the worldMesopotamia, India, and Egyptwhose enervate races offered them at once temptations to attack, and certainty of success. [FN#26] Even amongst the Indians, as a race the least chivalrous of men, there is an oath which binds two persons of different sex in the tie of friendship, by making them brother and sister to each other. [FN#27] Richardson derives our knight from Nikht ([Arabic]), a tilter with spears, and Caitiff from Khattaf, ([Arabic]) a snatcher or ravisher. [FN#28] I am not ignorant that the greater part of Antar is of modern and disputed origin. Still it accurately expresses Arab sentiment. [FN#29] I wish that the clever Orientalist who writes in the Saturday Review would not translate Al-Layl, by lenes sub nocte susurri: the Arab bard alluded to no such effeminacies. [FN#30] The subject of Dakhl has been thoroughly exhausted by Burckhardt and Layard. It only remains to be said that the Turks, through ignorance of the custom, have in some cases made themselves contemptible by claiming the protection of women. [FN#31] It is by no means intended to push this comparison of the Arabs with the Hibernians poetry. The former has an intensity which prevents our feeling that there are too many flowers for the fruit; the latter is too often a mere blaze of words, which dazzle and startle, but which, decomposed by reflection, are found to mean nothing. Witness