TIIE ARABIAN DESERT.—Part in
TIIE ARABIAN DESERT.—Part in
From Mount Sinai to the southern borders of Palostiue, the country is arid in tho oxtremo, tho surface consisting of hard sand and rocky formations, almost destitute of vegetation. Tbe Bcdawin Arabs rove up and down tlie Wadies, socking support for their camels and flocks on tlie scanty shrubbery that springs up in the rainy season and by the saline fountains. To such as have never seen the desert, it is difficult to convey an idea of tho utter desolation that prevails, and it seems a marvel that human beings should be willing, or able to live here, at all. IF the desolate grandeur of tho White Mountain Notch, without its cascades, tufts of grass or blue bells, could be extended indefinitely and made to cover hill and valley, poak aud plain, so tliat in one’s journeying, week after week, the dreary view should reach on every side to the horizon, that would be tho aspect of the Arabian desert. In rare localities indeed, a few acacias and palm trees appear, and feathery turfa shrubs often chequer the dry water-courses, but from Suez to Sinai, across to Gaza aud the Dead Sea and thence sweeping down, east and south, past Mecca and the Persian Gulf, the desolation, like an occan waste, everywhere prevails.
The inhabitants live at the farthest possiblo removo from tho modes of Western life. Without fixed abodes, they dwell in goat’^hair tents, and in their habita and customs are simple and freo. If tlie Fellahs of Egypt, as some arer, originally came forth from tlie Nile mud, the Bedawfn would seem to liaro sprang from tho yellow sand. They are of a sunburnt, hazel color, and active and noisy as the wind; naturally intelligent yet destitute of literature as the country is of ver-dure, and, like the mountain ranges and rocky cliffs, endowed with immovable traits and instinct with fires capable of sublime manifestation. On entering the country, it is impossible to forget the words of thirty or forty centuries ago, respecting their great ancestor: “He will bo a wild man: his hand will be against every man, and every roan’s hand against him.” Nor can one forgot the Mohammedan impulse, divine and human, that twelve centuries ago was here communicated to tlie world, tbo unspent force of which is mighty to this day.
Four thousand years have wrought out rare results in this desert. Tho Bodawin Arabs present a singular mixture of rapacity and generosity. With tho one marked virtue of hospitality, tboy Are a raco of robbers. It would seem that the old quarrel between Sarah and Iiagar, perpetuated from generation to generation, is yet alivo, and that Ishmacl’s children aro today blindly seeking reparation for wrongs suffered by their ancient mother, on tho soil whoro sho oxperienced thom. If this is so, how eminently worthy Abraham’s beautiful wife as an actor on human society to stand in the lino of apostolical succession from the first peerless mother!
The Bedawin regard as enemies all who do not belong to their tribe, or who are not in treaty with them; and to fight and plunder such is not only a general practice, but a universal sentiment and passion. Probably it would be impossible for Franks to cross the Arabian dosort at all, without first coming into friendly correspondence with the sheikhs, as lords of the soil. Their fortune, at least, on makihg tlw attempt, would closely resemble his, who ” went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieve*, who stripped him of his raiment, wounded him, and departod, leaving him half dead.” Tlie Bedawtn exo-cute this process now, as they did eighteen hundred years ago, not only on that very road to Jericho, but everywhere from the Jordan and the Dead Sea to tho bordors of Egypt. Tho epithet ” thieves,” applied by our Lord, was pronounoed, of course, from the gospel stand-point, and not from the Arab’s.