314 SIGNS OF WATER. Nevertheless, about four o'clock we saw a small bird fly past us. The sight of a little bird any where else is thought nothing of, if, indeed, it is noticed at all; but in the desert, and especially in a desert that is absolutely bare, dry, sterile, where there is no indication of life, you must have felt the peculiar gratification afforded by such a sight, in order to form any idea of it. A little further my people discovered what they took to be the track of a gazelle. We conjectured that there might be a spring in the vicinity, and we were not mistaken. We discovered a few slender rills of a bitter, brackish water, fit at most for cattle: our camels quenched their thirst with it. I could not drink it, though suffering severely from long thirst. I was more fortunate on the following day. After a toilsome ride of nine hours, which the extreme heat rendered still more fatiguing, we halted in the bottom of a narrow valley, bordered by masses of peaked rocks, in the clefts of which my Bedouins found water: they immedi ately brought me some, and, though it was very turbid, I thought it delicious in comparison with that in my skins. LETTER LII. TRIBE OF BEDOUINS-BEDOUINS OF THE PENINSULA OF SINAI-VIEW OF MOUNT SINAI-DANGEROUS ROAD - MONASTERY OF THE TRANSFIGU RATION-SINGULAR WAY OF ENTERING-SUPERIOR AND COMMUNITY -SUPPER IN THE REFECTORY - EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF THE MONASTERY-MOSQUE-CHAPEL Of the BurninG BUSH-RELICS OF ST. CATHERINE THE EMPRESS CATHERINE-GARDEN-DISTRIBUTION OF BREAD TO THE ARABS-LIBRARY EDICT ISSUED BY MAHOMET CONCERNING THE CHRISTIANS-TRAVELLERS' REGISTER. Cairo, March 24, 1833. On the 23d of February, by daybreak, we had resumed our journey. Three leagues from the valley where we TRIBE OF BEDOUINS. 315 had passed the night, we met a whole tribe of Bedouins, descending from the mountain, with their camels, their asses, and their sheep. As the least sterile part of the desert affords those animals but a very scanty supply of food, the places where they stop are soon exhausted, and their owners are, consequently, obliged to strike their tents, and to remove and pitch them elsewhere. The sight of this tribe reminded me of the patriarchs, and some of those scenes of which the books of the Old Testament hand down to us such natural and touching delineations. Methought I beheld Lot retiring with his family, and taking his cattle along with him, because the same tract could not support them as well as those of his uncle Abraham. With the assistance of my janissary, I liked, as we rode on, to enter into conversation with the Bedouins of my retinue about the manners and customs of such of their people as dwell in the peninsula of Mount Sinai; and I derived no slight gratification from hearing them relate things, which, in more than one respect, correspond with the habits and simplicity of life of the men of the first ages, "laborious, always abroad in the daytime, lodging in tents at night, changing their abode according to the convenience of pasturage, consequently, often employed in encamping and decamping, because they could make but short journeys with so large a train."* The Bedouins of the peninsula of Sinai are brown, or rather almost black. They are spare, but well made, and in general above the middling height. Their clothing con Moeurs des Israélites, p. 12. 316 TRIBE OF BEDOUINS. sists of a white woollen shirt with short sleeves, and linen drawers. The shirt reaches nearly half-way down the leg; over it they wear a sort of tunic, likewise of wool, with white and brown stripes, without sleeves, open before, and having slits on the sides to put the arms through. In summer they retain the shirt only, compressing it round the waist with a leathern belt. The head they cover with a white or red turban. Children go bare-headed. The feet are shod with a sandal, fastened by means of a leathern thong or a worsted cord: all of them are bare-legged. The garments of the women are, like those of the Egyptian females, very long linen drawers, and a blue cloth gown, open at the bosom, with wide sleeves, slit up for half their length. A band of black stuff, eight or nine inches broad, and twenty long, covers the whole face, excepting the eyes. Over that they throw a white veil. They wear necklaces of glass beads, and many of them adorn the instep with clumsy silver rings. The moveables of these tribes are as simple as their garments. They consist of a tent of brown woollen stuff, which the Bedouins make themselves, a few stones for grinding corn, coffee-pots, an instrument for roasting coffee, an earthenware mortar to pound it in, and a cauldron. To these articles, to which ordinary establishments are limited, must be added for persons in better circumstances a certain number of woollen sacks to hold the charcoal in which they deal. With the exception of very small and very rare pieces of ground, encompassed with wretched fences, you distinguish no separate properties in the peninsula of Sinai. CHARACTER OF THE BEDOUINS. 317 One or more camels, a few goats and sheep, constitute the whole wealth of an Arab family. Each tribe settles upon a tract of land not occupied by any other; there it lives, pasturing its cattle, making charcoal, and staying so long as the spot which it has chosen is capable of supplying its wants. Opulence is expressed by the number of camels: he who has none is poor. It is proverbially said of such a one :-" He is poor; he has no camels ;" and they add :-" God provides for him; he who has gives to him who has not." As the cattle are frequently intermixed, and the tents stand open, it is of the utmost importance for the Arabs to instil early into their children a great horror of theft, and to punish that crime with extreme severity. They mention with praise the justice of a father, from whom a goat was stolen by his own daughter. He pursued the culprit into the mountains, and, having found her engaged in cooking the stolen goat, he bound her hand and foot, and threw her into the fire. An unfaithful wife, an unmarried female who has lost her honour, are punished with the same rigour. The execution is not public: the husband or father takes the culprit aside upon the mountain, where the cruel punishment is inflicted. The general character of these tribes is a passionate love of independence: so far from envying the condition of the inhabitants of towns, they only feel contempt for them. Their minds are imbued with a certain pride, and with some lofty sentiments. Hospitality is so dear to them, that they exercise it even towards their enemies. The Bedouin despises the titles invented by human vanity; that to which he attaches most value is 318 CHARACTER OF THE BEDOUINS. the title of father: as soon as he has a son, he adds the name of the child to his own. If, on the one hand, the father is extremely fond of his children, on the other, nothing can equal the respect paid by children to the author of their being. Among the Bedouins of my retinue, two are married, and fathers of families. They are excellent fellows, whose services I have taken pleasure in rewarding from time to time by little presents; and never did either of them receive the slightest gift without raising his eyes to heaven and saying: "That shall be for my dear mother!" his first thought being of her to whom he owed his existence. The weapon of the Bedouins is a matchlock; were you to give them the finest European guns, they would not use them. If you explain to them the advantages of the latter, they listen to you with a smile of incredulity and pity. They likewise carry, stuck in their belt, a curved dagger, usually silver-hilted, about two feet long, and double-edged. While looking at the tribe mentioned in the beginning of this letter passing before me, I could not help remarking, with a feeling of compassion for these poor people, the singular kind of asses which formed part of their train. These animals have an extremely small body and a prodigious head. I cannot give you any better idea of them than by telling you that they are not unlike those little asses grotesquely carved in wood which you meet with at village fairs. What a difference between their form and that of the elegant Egyptian asses! Accustomed to the latter, the hideous appearance of these forced me to turn away my eyes. And yet, how unjust |