This is a trial of manliness. There is no time for
emotion. Not a moment can be spared, even for a retrospect. I kick my
dromedary, who steps out into a jog-trot. The Badawin with a loud
ringing laugh attempt to give me the go-by. I resist, and we continue
like children till the camels are at their speed, though we have
eighty-four miles before us, and above us an atmosphere like a furnace
blast. The road is deserted at this hour, otherwise grave Moslem
[p.144]travellers would have believed the police to be nearer than
convenient to us.
Presently we drew rein, and exchanged our pace for one more seasonable,
whilst the sun began to tell on man and beast. High raised as we were
above the ground, the reflected heat struck us sensibly, and the glare
of a macadamized road added a few extra degrees of caloric.[FN#5] The
Badawin, to refresh themselves, prepare to smoke. They fill my chibuk,
light it with a flint and steel, and cotton dipped in a solution of
gunpowder, and pass it over to me.[FN#6] After a few puffs I return it
to them, and they use it turn by turn. Then they begin to while away
the tedium of the road by asking questions, which passe-temps is not
easily exhausted; for they are never satisfied till they know as much
of you as you do of yourself. They next resort to talking about
victuals; for with this hungry race, food, as a topic of conversation,
takes the place of money in happier lands. 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. They landed at the Shurum,[FN#8] or
creek-ports, and have now spread themselves
[p.146]over the Eastern parts of the so-called "Sinaitic" peninsula. In
Al-Hijaz the Muzaynah is an old and noble tribe. It produced Ka'ab
al-Ahbar, the celebrated poet, to whom Mohammed gave the cloak which
the Ottomans believe to have been taken by Sultan Salim from Egypt, and
to have been converted under the name of Khirkah Sharif, into the
national Oriflamme.
There are some interesting ethnographical points about these Sinaitic
clans-interesting at least to those who would trace the genealogy of
the great Arabian family. Any one who knows the Badawin can see that
the Muzaynah are pure blood. Their brows are broad, their faces narrow,
their features regular, and their eyes of a moderate size; whereas the
other Tawarah[FN#9] (Sinaitic) clans are as palpably Egyptian. They
have preserved that roundness of face which may still be seen in the
Sphinx as in the modern Copt, and their eyes have that peculiar size,
shape, and look, which the old Egyptian painters attempted to express
by giving to the profile, the form of the full, organ. Upon this
feature, so characteristic of the Nilotic race, I would lay great
stress. No traveller familiar with the true Egyptian eye,-long,
almond-shaped, deeply fringed, slightly raised at the outer corner and
dipping in front like the Chinese,[FN#10]-can ever mistake it. It is to
be seen in half-castes, and, as I have before remarked, families
originally from the banks of the Nile, but settled for generations in
the Holy Land of Al-Hijaz, retain the peculiarity.
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.
