The Arabs Of These Parts Have Established Particular Transport Customs:
Of Those Who Inhabit This Peninsula, The Tribe Of Sowaleha Is Entitled
To One Half Of The Transport, And The Other Half Is Shared By The Two
Tribes Of Mezeyne And Aleygat.
As I wanted two camels, one was to be
furnished to me by a Sowaleha, and the other either by a Mezeyne or
Aleygat.
If no individuals of those three tribes happen to be present,
the business is easily settled with one of them, and the others have no
after claim; but if several of them are on the spot, quarrels always
arise among them, and he who conducts the traveller is obliged to give
to the others a small sum of money, to silence their claims. The same
custom or law marks out certain limits, which when the traveller and his
guide have once passed, the countrymen of the latter have no more claims
for the transport. The limit from Tor, northward, is half way between
Tor and Wady. The Bedouin who had carried me from Tor to Wady passed
this limit by stealth, none of his friends knowing of it: they pursued
when they saw us on the road; but we had passed the limits before they
came up with us, and I had thus fallen to the lot of this guide; when,
on inquiring at Wady for a new guide to Cairo, I was told that no person
could take the transport upon himself, without the knowledge or
permission of the Bedouin
[p.439] who had brought me to Wady from Tor, and upon whose camel I had
once crossed the limits.
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