And Lastly, Even This Engrossing Subject Being Exhausted For The Moment,

[P.145]they take refuge in singing; and, monotonous and droning as it is, their Modinha has yet an artless plaintiveness, which admirably suits the singer and the scenery.

If you listen to the words, you will surely hear allusions to bright verdure, cool shades, bubbling rills, or something which hereabouts man hath not, and yet which his soul desires.

And now while Nassar and his brother are chaunting a duet,-the refrain being,

"W'al arz mablul bi matar," "And the earth wet with rain,"-

I must crave leave to say a few words, despite the triteness of the subject, about the modern Sinaitic race of Arabs.

Besides the tribes occupying the northern parts of the peninsula, five chief clans are enumerated by Burckhardt.[FN#7] Nassar, and other authorities at Suez, divided them into six, namely:-

1. Karashi, who, like the Gara in Eastern Arabia, claim an apocryphal origin from the great Koraysh tribe. 2. Salihi, the principal family of the Sinaitic Badawin. 3. Arimi: according to Burckhardt this clan is merely a sub-family of the Sawalihahs. 4. Sa'idi. Burckhardt calls them Walad Sa'id and derives them also from the Sawalihahs. 5. Aliki ; and lastly, the 6. Muzaynah, generally pronounced M'zaynah. This clan claims to be an off-shoot from the great Juhaynah tribe inhabiting the coasts and inner barrens about Yambu'. According to oral tradition, five persons, the ancestors of the present Muzaynah race, were forced by a blood-feud to fly their native country.

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