commutation takes place, the unfortunate homicide and all his relations comprised within the khomse take refuge among another tribe, where they imagine the arm of vengeance cannot reach them. The fugitives are also allowed three full days, and a few hours of the fourth, during which time there is no pursuit, and they remain in exile until their friends arrange the matter for them. Families of such fugitives are sometimes known to be in exile for more than fifty years, for it happens that, during the life of the son and grandson of the person killed, no compromise is made. Every expedient is reckoned lawful to avenge the blood of a slain relation; but he cannot be killed if he is a guest in the tent of a third party, or even if he has taken refuge among his most inveterate enemies.

The inclination or disposition of the Arabs to robbery and theft is proverbial. They are a nation of robbers, and have reduced this occupation to a perfect system, in which friends and enemies equally suffer. Yet the Arabs must not be confounded with the highwaymen, housebreakers, and common thieves of Europe, such as those who infest large towns, cities, and civilized kingdoms. On the other hand, the Arab, not unlike the clans of our own country in the feudal times, in their predatory excursions both against the inhabitants of the lowland districts and against each other, when they happened to be at variance, considers his occupation highly honourable, and the term harámy, or robber, is the greatest title which can be conferred on him. Enemies, friends, and neighbours are alike robbed; but the property is sacred if it is actually within the tent of its proprietor. It is not indeed reckoned respectable to rob in the same camp, or among friendly tribes, although it is often done without entailing any disgrace. They resort to various expedients in effecting these robberies, the great principle being to plunder by stealth, and carry off secretly what they could not obtain by open force. It is reckoned a great prize to secure a harámy, or robber,

as a prisoner, who is then called rabiet, while he who seizes him is called rabát. He is subjected to very rigorous treatment; and if no means can be devised for effecting his escape, he must at length conclude some terms of ransom. Yet, notwithstanding this almost instinctive disposition to plunder which characterizes the Arab tribes, life and property may be entrusted with perfect security to a Bedouin. His notions of honour are such, that he will defend to the utmost the goods of another party of which he has been constituted the protector; but his enemies become the enemies of the person whom he protects. Burckhardt tells us, that many of the Aeneze Bedouins are employed as messengers between Aleppo, Bagdad, and Basrah; that they were formerly in the habit of accompanying English gentlemen going to or returning from India through the Desert; and that, although some few instances have occurred of travellers having been plundered on the road by strange tribes, it is certain that these Bedouins, however importunate in their demands for money, faithfully observed the engagements they made.

The hospitality of the Arabs has long been celebrated. The person of a guest is sacred, and he who has a single protector in any one tribe becomes the friend of all the tribes connected in amity with that tribe. To eat with an Arab in his own tent constitutes the sacred right of protection; and to such an extent do they carry their notions on this subject, that if a child give a captured harámy, or robber, a morsel of bread (excepting, however, the child of the person who has taken him prisoner), the said harámy claims the privilege of having eaten with his captor, and he must be instantly set at liberty. The camel or mare belonging to the guest is the object of special care, lest either should be carried off by nocturnal depredations; and it often happens, should a robbery occur, that the host, if he is able, indemnifies his guest for the losses he has sustained. When a stranger alights in a camp where

he has no particular friend or acquaintance, he goes into the first tent that presents itself; and whether the owner be at home or not, the females immediately prepare breakfast or dinner. If his stay is likely to be protracted, he is asked by his host on the fourth day if he intends to remain any longer, and if he replies in the affirmative, he is expected to assist in various matters, such as feeding the horse, milking the camel, and carrying water. It is reckoned one of the greatest insults to tell an Arab that he neglects his guest, or does not treat him in a suitably hospitable manner. The Bedouin Arab is extremely miserable if he feels himself so poor that he cannot entertain his guest according to his wish. It is then that he beholds with envy his more fortunate neighbours, whose sneers on the subject of his poverty he greatly dreads; but if he can contrive to display his hospitality, he is as happy as the richest sheik, towards whom he bears at other times no envious grudge on account of his more numerous possessions. To be a Bedouin is to be hospitable. The poorest of them will always divide their scanty meal with a hungry stranger, although they may not have the means of immediately procuring a supply; nor will they let the stranger know how much they have sacrificed to his necessities.

The Arabs have many black slaves, and servants of both sexes, to whom they give their freedom after a service of some years. They never cohabit with the females, but marry them to the male slaves, or the descendants of slaves belonging to the tribe. Although emancipated, these slaves dare not marry a white girl, nor does a free Arab ever marry a black girl. The slaves are treated with great kindness, and are seldom personally chastised; and servants, or free Arabs, would resent any blow or insult as from an equal. These servants receive regular wages.

Such are a few of the customs of these wild men, the descendants of Ishmaelthese wandering inhabitants of the Desert, whose hand may be literally said

to be "against every man"-customs which they have retained for more than three thousand years, and the origin of which is lost in dark antiquity. In their moral and general character the Bedouins exhibit an equally singular compound. As it respects their peculiar habits and vices, an inordinate love of gain distinguishes the Bedouin Arabs; and lying, cheating, intriguing, and other vices arising from this source, are as prevalent in the Desert as in the large towns of Syria. In their tents they are indolent and lazy, their chief occupation being the feeding of their horses or milking their camels; the hired servants taking care of the herds and flocks, while the wife and daughters perform all the domestic business. They cheat each other in their private dealings as much as they can, and have a tolerable idea of the nature of usury; and on the common occasions of buying and selling, the word of an Arab is entitled to little credit. Yet they have some redeeming qualities. They are of a kinder temper than the Turks; they pity and support the wretched, and never forget generosity shown to them. They are free, sprightly, jocose, and decent in their common conversation; they are moderate and abstemious in their enjoyments; although jealous of their women, they allow them to joke and converse with men; and it is an acknowledged custom, in every part of the Arabian Desert, that a woman may entertain strangers in the absence of her husband, on which occasion some male relative represents the absent owner of the tent.

It is somewhat remarkable that in modern times many of the Arabians, especially those employed in the service of the Pacha of Egypt, have become expert sailors; and the Arab soldiers in the Egyptian army, we are assured by a recent traveller (Dr Hogg, in his Visit to Damascus, Jerusalem, &c. 1832), who are trained by European instructors, had become, to the astonishment of all, an orderly, tractable, and well disciplined army. It is admitted by all travellers that the Arabs

wherever they are found, either abroad or in their own country, appear very different from the Turks. They have not indeed the dignified and majestic deportment of the Ottomans, but they have none of their apathy, and exhibit a vivacity, astuteness, and curiosity, quite European. "They evinced," says an intelligent female traveller (Narrative of a Journey over land from England, by the Continent of Europe, Egypt, and the Red Sea, to India, in 1825, by Mrs Colonel Elwood), "the most intense interest in all our European novelties, and one day as we were opening a box of books in their presence, an Arabic Testament caught their attention. They examined it most inquisitively, and appeared highly pleased with its contents, at once comprehending that it related to Allah (God). They asked its price, where it could be procured, and seemed quite anxious to obtain a supply. They requested permission to take it home with them to peruse, but, alas! while we were indulging in most pleasing speculations, and fancying we might perchance be the humble instruments in the hands of Providence to introduce the Bible and the knowledge of the Christian religion into this remote spot, scarcely had an hour elapsed ere our Testament was returned to us, evidently from no dislike or disapprobation of its contents, but probably because some of their Mollahs or priests had prohibited their reading it. They, however, accepted with thankfulness and pleasure some of Mr Jowett's (of the Church Missionary Society) Arabic SpellingBook, of which he had furnished us with a supply when at Malta. It is for the Bible and the Missionary Societies to decide, but from what we saw of Arabia, I cannot but think there is a vast field here for their exertions, if judiciously employed. There seems little bigotry, though an immense deal of selfishness, and a love of filthy lucre, in the Arab character; but I, however, seriously believe that they would be, without much difficulty, converted to our holy religion, or at least weaned from the errors of their

own." Of the "vast field" for missionary enterprise in Arabia there can be little doubt, but the amiable writer has not recollected that the same cause which precluded hostile armies from subduing the wandering and predatory race of Ishmael must also operate against the ministers of the Christian church,-the frightful and appalling deserts of sterility, little known to Europeans, whose wandering inhabitants would almost require a miracle to be wrought on their habits and dispositions preparatory to their reception of the gospel.

Religion. The religion of this remarkable Asiatic nation is an object of interesting inquiry, showing us how curiously the Mahometans have blended the events of Sacred History with their own fabulous inventions, and the names of the patriarchs with their wild traditions. The Mahometans pretend, for example, that Eve was banished to the town of Djidda, a name which some allege signifies the first of mothers, after the Fall; and they still show the tomb of Howa, as they term her, two miles north of the town, which is described as a rude structure about four feet in length, two or three in breadth, and as many in height. After a separation of an hundred years, Adam rejoined her on Mount Arafath, near Mecca, and by the orders of the Almighty, the angels took a tent from Paradise called Kheyme, and pitched it for the accommodation of our first parents precisely in the same spot where Seth subsequently erected the Caaba, and which he consecrated to the worship of the Eternal Deity. The body of Adam at his death, after having been washed and purified by angels, wrapped in a winding-sheet with perfumes and aromatics by the Archangel Michael, and prayed over by Gabriel, was then deposited in a place called Ghar 'ul Keez, the grotto of treasure, on the mountain Djebel Eb y Coubeyss. At the time of the Deluge, Noah, by the command of the Almighty, took the corpse of Adam with him into the Ark in a coffin, and when the Flood was abated, his first care was to restore it to the

grotto whence he had taken it! These and similar traditions-for it would be tedious to attempt the enumeration of them all together with the Caaba, or wonderful black stone, already noticed in the general article ARABIA, render Arabia as interesting to the Mahometans as the Holy Land was in ancient times to the Crusaders, and as Jerusalem still is to the Christian pilgrim. The Mahometan legends account for some hills in the neighbourhood of Mecca by alleging that when Abraham, assisted by his son Ishmael, was building the Beit Allah, or House of God, at Mecca, God commanded every mountain in the world to contribute its proportion, and the blackness of Corra Deg, a mountain in the neighbourhood of Algiers, is supposed by them to have been occasioned by its refusing to obey the injunction. Here, too, is the Zemzem, or sacred well of Mecca, the waters of which all devout Mussulmans drink, and which they revere as the well shown to Hagar by the angel in the Wilderness, when, with Ishmael her son, she was cast out by Abraham, at the request of his wife Sarah.

Many of the Bedouin Arab tribes, however, belong to the recent and now powerful sect of the Wahabees or Wahàbys. This sect, which is a branch of Mahometanism, was founded towards the end of the eighteenth century by a learned Arab named Abd el Wahab, of the tribe of Temym, who was born at a village called El Howta, in the district or province of Nedjed. He visited various of the principal cities of the East, and being convinced that Mahometanism or Islamism had become totally corrupted, its primitive faith obscured by abuses, and that the greater part of the people of the East, particularly the Turks, were heretics, he resolved to commence a reformation, and restore the doctrines and ritual of the Koran to what he conceived their original simplicity. He reprobated the worship of saints, the use of ardent spirits, and intoxicating drugs, and the opinion which the Mahometans entertained in general respecting the eternity

of the Koran; but he insisted on the authority of Mahomet as the Prophet of God, and held that the Koran was the grand depository of those laws which the Faithful were to obey. "There is only one God," he affirmed; "He is God; and Mahomet is his Prophet. Act according to the Koran, and the sayings of Mahomet. It is unnecessary to pray for the blessing of God or the Prophet more than once in your life. You must not invoke the Prophet to intercede with God in your behalf, for his intercession will be of no avail. At the day of judgment it will avail you. Do not call upon the Prophet; call upon God alone." The doctrines of Abd el Wahab were thus to a certain extent neither new, nor contradictory to the general principles of the Mahometan faith, except in his deprecation of the Prophet as a mediator, and his limiting the invocation of God and the Prophet for a blessing to only once in a lifetime. His efforts were chiefly directed towards the restoration of what he conceived to be the pure Moslem faith, and to disseminate it among the Bedouin Arabs, who, though nominally Mussulmans, were for the most part as ignorant of its tenets as they were indifferent to its duties. He reproached the Turks for honouring the Prophet in a manner which approaches to adoration, in defiance of the express declarations of the Koran, in numerous passages, that Mahomet was a fallible man like other

men.

The Turks, said Abd el Wahab, acknowledge the Koran as their revealed law, in which all their statements are made; but yet their fanaticism is not contented with the Prophet's own modest declarations, and their muftis and learned men, to justify their idolatry, urge, with sophistical subtlety, that the Prophet, although dead and buried, has not shared the common fate of mortals, but is still alive, and that his access to the Almighty, and his being dearly beloved by Him, render it easy for him to protect or recommend any of his faithful adherents. The Turks, moreover, visited Mahomet's tomb with the same

devotion which they exhibit in the great temple of Mecca, and when standing before the tomb uttered aloud their impious invocations, so that, according to Wahab, they fully deserved the stigma of being held as infidels, because they associated human beings with the Almighty. The Turks were also reproached for rendering divine honours to the memory of saints, of whom in every town there are many tombs, and in every village at least one, over which are erected small buildings with vaulted roofs or cupolas, and in these buildings the Turks or Mussulmans offered up their particular prayers, in the hopes that the saint would more readily record their supplications before the Almighty. Those Mahometan saints were persons whose exemplary life, or, in other words, great cunning and hypocrisy, had procured for them this posthumous distinction, and were venerated as highly as those of the Roman Church are venerated by its followers, and were alleged to have performed in their own way as many extraordinary miracles. But Wahab and his followers declared that all men were equal in the sight of God-that even the most virtuous could not intercede with him and that it was sinful to invoke saints, or to hold their mortal remains in greater estimation than those of other persons. In the true spirit of this opinion, they subsequently destroyed all domes and ornamented tombs wherever they carried their arms. This warring against impious idolatry, as they termed it, became the favourite taste of the Wahabees in Hedjaz, Yemen, Mesopotamia, and Syria; and as some domes formed the cupolas of mosques, they did not scruple to destroy these buildings also. When the holy city of Mecca fell into their hands, they destroyed the cupola of every canonized Arab; and even those were unscrupulously broken down which covered the birth-place of Mahomet himself, of his wife Khadija, his grandsons Hassan and Hossein, and his uncle Abu Taleb, the assailants exclaiming, "God have mercy upon those who destroyed, but

VOL. I.

none upon those who built them." The large dome which covers the tomb of Mahomet at Medina was destined to share the same fate, but its solid structure resisted the efforts of the assailants, and after several of them were killed by falling from the top, the attempt was relinquished. A recent traveller has summed up various points of difference between the Wahabees and the Turks, which we here lay before the reader. "The negligence of the far greater part of the Turks towards their religious laws, except what relates to prayer, purification, or fasting, was another subject on which the founder of the Wahabee sect inveighed. Alms to the poor, as enjoined by the law, the sumptuary regulations instituted by Mahomet, the severity and impartiality of justice for which the first Caliphs were so much distinguished, the martial spirit which was enjoined by the law to be constantly upheld against the enemies of the faith or the infidels, the abstaining from whatever might inebriate, unlawful commerce with women, practices contrary to nature, and various others, were so many precepts not only entirely disregarded by the modern Turks, but openly violated with impunity. The scandalous conduct of many hadjis, who polluted the sacred cities with their infamous lusts, the open licence which the chiefs of the caravans gave to debauchery, and all the vice which follow in the train of pride and selfishness, the numerous acts of treachery and fraud perpetrated by the Turks, were all held up by the Wahabees as specimens of the general character of the unreformed Mussulmans, and presented a sad contrast to the purity of morals and manners to which they themselves aspired, and to the humility with which the pilgrim is bound to approach the holy Caaba.Abd el Wahab took as his sole guide the Koran and the Sunne for the laws formed upon the traditions of Mahomet; and the only difference between their sect and the orthodox Turks, however improperly so termed, is, that the Wahabees rigidly follow the same laws which the others