Bedouins, but could not
readily believe a report so inconsistent with our established notions of
the respect in which female honour is held by the Arabs; but I can no
longer entertain a doubt on the subject, having received, both at Mekka
and Tayf, from various persons who had actually witnessed the fact, most
unequivocal evidence in confirmation of the statement.
Before the Wahaby conquest it was a custom among the Asyr Arabs, to take
their marriageable daughters, attired in their best clothes, to the
public market, and there, walking before them, to cry out, Man yshtery
el Aadera? "Who will buy the virgin?" The match,
[p.449] sometimes previously settled, was always concluded in the
market-place; and no girl was permitted to marry in any other manner.
I heard that tigers and wolves abound in these mountains, but that there
are not any lions. The Arabs have here a fine breed of mules and asses.
No. III.
Route from Tayf to Sanaa.
This itinerary was communicated to me by a poor man who had travelled
with his wife, in 1814, from Sada to Mekka.
