The
Citizens Have Learned The Turkish Scimitar-Play, Which, In
Grotesqueness And General Absurdity, Rivals The East Indian School.
None Of These Orientals Knows The Use Of The Point Which Characterises
The Highest School Of Swordsmanship.
The Hijazi Badawin have no game of chance, and dare not, I am told,
ferment the juice of the Daum palm, as proximity to Aden has taught the
wild men of Al-Yaman.[FN#44] Their music is in a rude state.
The
principal instrument is the Tabl, or kettle-drum, which is of two
kinds: one, the smaller, used at festivals; the other, a large copper
“tom-tom,” for martial purposes, covered with leather, and played upon,
pulpit-like, with fist, and not with stick. Besides which, they have
the one-stringed Rubabah, or guitar, that “monotonous but charming
instrument of the Desert.” In another place I have described their
dancing, which is an ignoble spectacle.
The Badawin of Al-Hijaz have all the knowledge necessary for procuring
and protecting the riches of savage life. They are perfect in the
breeding, the training, and the selling of cattle. They know sufficient
of astronomy to guide themselves by night, and are acquainted
[p.108] with the names of the principal stars. Their local memory is
wonderful. And such is their instinct in the art of asar, or tracking,
that it is popularly said of the Zubayd clan, which lives between
Meccah and Al-Madinah, a man will lose a she-camel and know her
four-year-old colt by its foot.
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