Goats at Tor or at Sherm, to which latter place they are
brought by the Bedouins of the opposite coast of Arabia.
When Egypt was under the unsettled government of the Mamelouks the
Towara Bedouins, who were then independent, were very formidable, and
often at war with the Begs, as well as with the surrounding tribes. At
present they have lost much of the profits which they derived from their
traffic with Suez, and from the passage of caravans to Cairo; they are
kept in awe by Mohammed Ali, and have taken to more peaceful habits,
which, however, they are quite ready to abandon, on the first appearance
of any change in the government of Egypt. Even now, they pay no duty
whatever to
[p.562] the Pasha, who, on the contrary, makes their chief some annual
presents; but they are obliged to submit to the rate of carriage which
the Pasha chooses to fix for the transport of his goods. They live, of
course, according to their means; the small sum of fifteen or twenty
dollars pays the yearly expenses of many, perhaps of most of their
families, and the daily and almost unvarying food of the greater part of
them is bread, with a little butter or milk, for which salt alone is
substituted when the dry season is set in, and their cattle no longer
yield milk. The Mezeine appeared to me much hardier than the other
tribes, owing probably to their being exposed to greater privations in
the more barren district which they inhabit. They hold more intercourse
with the neighbouring Bedouins to the north than the other Towaras, and
in their language and manners approach more to the great eastern tribes
than to the other Bedouins of the peninsula.
All the tribes of the Towara complain of the sterility of their
wives;[They wish for children because their tribe is strengthened by it.
But Providence seems to have wisely proportioned the fertility of their
women to the barrenness of the country.] and though the Bedouin women in
general are less fruitful than the stationary Arabs, the Towara are even
below the other Bedouins in this respect, three children being a large
family among them.
To the true Bedouin tribes above enumerated are to be added the advenae
called Djebalye [Arabic], or the mountaineers. I have stated that when
Justinian built the convent, he sent a party of slaves, originally from
the shores of the Black sea, as menial servants to the priests. These
people came here with their wives, and were settled by the convent as
guardians of the orchards and date plantations throughout the peninsula.
Subsequently, when the Bedouins deprived the convent of many of its
possessions, these slaves turned
[p.563] Moslems, and adopted the habits of Bedouins.
