Their Descendants
Are The Present Djebalye, Who Unanimously Confess Their Descent From The
Christian Slaves, Whence They Are Often Called
By the other Bedouins
“the children of Christians.” They are not to be distinguished, however,
in features or manners, from
Other Bedouins, and they are now considered
a branch of the Towara, although the latter still maintain the
distinction, never giving their daughters in marriage to the Djebalye,
nor taking any of theirs; thus the Djebalye intermarry only among
themselves, and form a separate commmunity of about one hundred and
twenty armed men. They are a very robust and hardy race, and their girls
have the reputation of superior beauty over all others of the peninsula,
a circumstance which often gives rise to unhappy attachments, and
romantic love-tales, when their lovers happen to belong to other tribes.
The Djebalye still remain the servants of the convent; parties of three
attend in it by turns, and are the only Bedouins who are permitted to
enter within the walls; but they are never allowed to sleep in the
house, and pass the night in the garden. They provide fire-wood, collect
dried herbage for the mule which turns the mill, bring milk, eggs, &c.
and receive all the offals of the kitchen. Some of them encamp as
Bedouins in the mountains surrounding the peaks of Moses and St.
Catherine, but the greater part are settled in the gardens belonging to
the convent, in those mountains. They engage to deliver one-half the
fruit to the convent, but as these gardens produce the finest fruit in
the peninsula, they are so beset by Bedouin guests at the time of
gathering, that the convent’s share is usually consumed in hospitality.
The Djebalye have formed a strict alliance with the Korashy, that branch
of the Szowaleha which has no claims of protectorship upon the convent,
and by these means they have maintained from
[p.564] ancient times, a certain balance of power against the other
Szowaleha. They have no right to transport pilgrims to the convent, and
are, in general, considered as pseudo-Arabs, although they have become
Bedouins in every respect. They are divided into several smaller tribes,
some of whom have become settlers; thus the Tebna are settled in the
date valley of Feiran, in gardens nominally the property of the convent:
the Bezya in the convent’s gardens at Tor; and the Sattla in other
parts, forming a few families, whom the true Bedouins stigmatize with
the opprobrious name of Fellahs, or peasants. The monks told me that in
the last century there still remained several families of Christian
Bedouins who had not embraced Islamism; and that the last individual of
this description, an old woman, died in 1750, and was buried in the
garden of the convent. In this garden is the burial-ground of the monks,
and in several adjoining vaulted chambers their remains are collected
after the bodies have lain two years in the coffins underground. High
piles of hands, shin bones, and sculls are placed separately in the
different corners of these chambers, which the monks are with difficulty
persuaded to open to strangers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 373 of 453
Words from 194388 to 194915
of 236498
