I Therefore Believe The Turi Badawin To Be An Impure

[P.147]race, Syro-Egyptian,[FN#11] whereas their neighbour the Hijazi is the pure Syrian or Mesopotamian.

A wonderful change has taken place in the Tawarah tribes, whilome pourtrayed by Sir John Mandeville as "folke fulle of alle evylle condiciouns." Niebuhr notes the trouble they gave him, and their perpetual hankering for both murder and pillage. Even in the late Mohammed Ali's early reign, no governor of Suez dared to flog, or to lay hands upon, a Turi, whatever offence he might have committed within the walls of the town. Now the Wild Man's sword is taken from him, before he is allowed to enter the gates,[FN#12] and my old acquaintance, Ja'afar Bey, would think no more of belabouring a Badawi than of flogging a Fellah.[FN#13] such is the result of

[p.148]Mohammed Ali's vigorous policy, and such the effects of even semi-civilisation, when its influence is brought to bear direct upon barbarism.

To conclude this subject, the Tawarah still retain many characteristics of the Badawi race. The most good-humoured and sociable of men, they delight in a jest, and may readily be managed by kindness and courtesy. Yet they are passionate, nice upon points of honour, revengeful, and easily offended, where their peculiar prejudices are misunderstood. I have always found them pleasant companions, and deserving of respect, for their hearts are good, and their courage is beyond a doubt. Those travellers who complain of their insolence and extortion may have been either ignorant of their language or offensive to them by assumption of superority,-in the Desert man meets man,-or physically unfitted to acquire their esteem.

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