with a high hand, for poor Suttum had been compelled, almost immediately after his marriage, to send back a young and beautiful wife to her father's tent."

It was not wonderful that the sheikh should rejoice in that wild freedom out of his tent; but for a man even more sobered down than he was by domestic troubles, there was truly an exhilaration in that sea of flowers spreading on every side. "During our stay at Arban," says Layard, "the color of these great plains was undergoing a continual change. After being for some days of a golden yellow, a new family of flowers would spring up, and it would turn almost in a night to a bright scarlet, which would again suddenly give way to the deepest blue. Then the meadows would be mottled with various hues, or would put on an enamelled green of the most luxuriant pastures. The glowing descriptions I had frequently received from the Bedouins of the beauty and fertility of the banks of the Khabour were more than realized."

Respecting a tribe on the move by the Sinjar wells, he says, "The narrow valleys and ravines were blood-red with gigantic poppies. The Bedouins adorned their camels and horses with the scarlet flowers and twisted them into their own head-dresses and long garments. Even the Tiyari dressed themselves up in the gaudy trappings of nature; and as we journeyed, chanting the Arab war-song, we resembled the return of a festive procession from some sacrifice of old. During our weary marches under the burning sun it required some such episode to keep up the drooping spirits of the men who toiled on foot by our side. Poetry and flowers are the wine and spirits of the Arab; a couplet is

1 Arban is on the Khabour a tributary to the Euphrates; is the place to which the Israelites were carried, and where they "hung their harps upon the willows." It is about ninety miles S. E. from Haran, where Abraham stopped for a while, and where Jacob procured his two wives.

equal to a bottle, and a rose to a dram, without the evil effects of either.

"The middle of March in Mesopotomia is the highest epoch of spring. Flowers of every hue enamelled the meadows, not thinly scattered over the grass as in Northern climes, but in such thick and gathering clusters that the whole plain seemed a patchwork of many colors. . . . .

"Although such scenes as these may be described, the exhilaration caused by the air of the desert in spring, and the feeling of freedom arising from the contemplation of its boundless expanse, must have been experienced before it can be understood. The stranger as well as the Arab feels the intoxication of the senses which they produce. . .

Subsequently, "It was one of those calm and pleasant evenings which in spring make a paradise of the desert. The breeze bland and perfumed by the odor of flowers came calmly over the plain. As the sun went down, countless camels and sheep wandered to the tents, and the melancholy call of the herdsmen rose above the bleating of the flocks." We continue extracts in order to give the reader an idea of this singular kind of life in all its aspects.

"Their [shammar] sheikh's dress differed but in the quality of the material from those of his followers. A thick kerchief, striped with red, yellow and blue, and fringed with long plaited cords, was thrown over his head and fell down. his shoulders. It was held in its place, above the brow, by a band of spun camel's wool, tied at intervals by silken threads of many colors. A long white shirt, descending to the ankles, and a black and white cloak over it, completed his attire. He led Rassam' and myself to the top of the tent, where we seated ourselves on well-worn carpets. When all the party had found places, the words of welcome which had been exchanged before we dismounted, were repeated.

1 British Vice-consul at Mosul, opposite the site of Nineveh.

'Peace be with you, O Beg! upon my head you are welcome; my house is your house,' exclaimed the sheikh, addressing the stranger nearest to him. 'Peace be with you, O Soffuk! may God protect you,' was the answer, and similar compliments were made to every guest and every person present."

Mrs. Rassam, their companion on this occasion, was conducted to the tent of the females of Soffuk's household, and of them we are informed, that,

"Of the three ladies now forming his harêm, the chief was Amsha, a lady celebrated in the song of every Arab of the desert for her beauty and noble blood. She was daughter of Hassan, sheikh of the Tai, a tribe tracing its origin from remotest antiquity, and one of whose chiefs, Hatem, is a hero of Eastern romance. . . From her rank and beauty she has earned the title of 'Queen of the desert.' Her form, traceable through the thin shirt she wore like other Arab women, was well-proportioned and graceful. She was tall in stature and fair in complexion. Her features were regular and her eyes dark and brilliant. She had undoubtedly claims to more than ordinary beauty; to the Arabs she was perfection, for all the resources of their art had been exhausted to complete what nature had begun.

"Her menage combined, if old song be true, the domestic and the queenly, and was carried on with a nice appreciation of economy. The immense sheet of black goat-hair canvas which formed the tent was supported by twelve or fourteen stout poles, and was completely open on one side. Being entirely set apart for the women, it had no partitions, as in a tent of a common Arab, who is obliged to reserve a corner for the reception of guests. Between the centre poles were placed, upright and close to one another, large camel and goat-hair sacks, filled with rice, corn, barley, coffee and other household stuff, their mouths being, of course, uppermost. Upon these were spread carpets and cushions, on

which Amsha reclined. Around her, squatted on the ground, were some fifty handmaidens tending the wide caldron, baking bread in an iron plate heated over the ashes, or shaking between them a skin suspended between three stakes and filled with milk, to be thus churned into butter. It is the privilege of the head-wife to prepare in her tent the dinners of the sheikh's guests. The fires, lighted on all sides, sent forth a cloud of smoke which hung heavily under the folds of the tent, and would long before have dimmed any eyes less bright than those of Amsha. As supplies were asked for by the women, she lifted a corner of her carpet and untied the mouths of the sacks and distributed their contents. To show her authority and rank, she poured continually upon her attendants a torrent of abuse, and honored them with epithets of which I may be excused attempting to give a translation; her vocabulary equalling if not excelling in richness that of the highly educated lady of the city. The combination of the domestic and the authoritative was thus complete.

"Amsha, as I have observed, shared the affections, though not the tent, of Soffuk-for each establishment had a tent of its own-with two other ladies; Antonia, an Arab not much inferior to her rival in personal appearance; and Ferrah, originally a Yezidi slave, who had no pretensions to beauty. Amsha, however, always maintained her sway, and the others could not sit, without her leave, in her presence. To her alone were confided the keys of the larder-supposing Soffuk to have had either keys or larder—and there was no appeal from her authority on all subjects of domestic economy."

On another page of Layard's book we have before us a sheikh who may answer well to the picture in our minds of the Hebrew, Abraham. He says:

"In the afternoon [when near the Sinjar hills] Suttum's father, Rishwan, came to us, accompanied by several sheikhs

of the Boraij. He rode on a white deloul [female dromedary] celebrated for her beauty and swiftness. His saddle and the neck of the animal were profusely adorned with woollen tassels of many colors, glass beads and small shells after the manner of the Arabs of the Nejo. The well-trained dromedary having knelt at the door of my tent, the old man alighted, and throwing his arms around my neck, kissed me on both shoulders. He was tall and of noble carriage. His beard was white with age, but his form was still erect and his footstep firm. Rishwan was one of the bravest warriors of the Shammar [his tribe]. He had come, when a child, with his father from the original seat of the tribe in Northern Arabia. . . . . He was a noble specimen of the true Bedouin, both in character and appearance. With the skill and daring of the Arab warrior, he united the hospitality, generosity and good faith of the hero of Arab romance. He spoke the rich dialect of the desert tongue with the eloquence peculiar to his race."

We quote from the journal a few days after this. "The Bedouin can tell at once, when drawing near to an encampment, the tent of the sheikh. It is generally distinguished by its size, and frequently by the spears standing in the front of it. If the stranger be not coming directly toward it, and wishes to be a guest of the chief, he goes out of his way that, on approaching, he may ride at once to it without passing any other, as it is considered uncourteous and almost an insult to go by a man's tent without stopping and eating his bread. The owner of a tent has even a right to claim any one as his guest who passes in front of it on entering an encampment.

"As we seated ourselves [at Rishwan's tent] two sheep were slain before us for a feast; a ceremony it would not have been considered sufficiently hospitable to perform previous to our arrival, as it might have been doubtful whether the animals had been slain wholly for us."