[FN#2] The Mahrah, The Janabah, And The Gara Especially Show A Low Development, For Which Hardship And Privation Alone Will Not Satisfactorily Account.[FN#3] These Are Arab Al-Aribah For Whose Inferiority Oriental Fable Accounts As Usual By Thaumaturgy.

The principal advenæ are the Noachians, a great Chaldaean or Mesopotamian tribe which entered Arabia about

[P.78] 2200 A.C., and by slow and gradual encroachments drove before them the ancient owners and seized the happier lands of the Peninsula. The great Anzah and the Nijdi families are types of this race, which is purely Caucasian, and shows a highly nervous temperament, together with those signs of “blood” which distinguish even the lower animals, the horse and the camel, the greyhound and the goat of Arabia. These advenae would correspond with the Arab al-Mutarribah or Arabicized Arabs of the eastern historians.[FN#4]

The third family, an ancient and a noble race dating from A.C. 1900, and typified in history by Ishmael, still occupies the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula. These Arabs, however, do not, and never did, extend beyond the limits of the mountains, where, still dwelling in the presence of their brethren, they retain all the wild customs and the untamable spirit of their forefathers. They are distinguished from the pure stock by an admixture of Egyptian blood,[FN#5]

[p.79] and by preserving the ancient characteristics of the Nilotic family. The Ishmaelities are sub-Caucasian, and are denoted in history as the Arab al-Mustarribah, the insititious or half-caste Arab.

Oriental ethnography, which, like most Eastern sciences, luxuriates in nomenclative distinction, recognises a fourth race under the name of Arab al-Mustajamah. These “barbarized Arabs” are now represented by such a population as that of Meccah.

That Aus and Khazraj, the Himyaritic tribes which emigrated to Al-Hijaz, mixed with the Amalikah, the Jurham, and the Katirah, also races from Al-Yaman, and with the Hebrews, a northern branch of the Semitic family, we have ample historical evidence. And they who know how immutable is race in the Desert, will scarcely doubt that the Badawi of Al-Hijaz preserves in purity the blood transmitted to him by his ancestors.[FN#6]

[p.80] I will not apologise for entering into details concerning the personale of the Badawin[FN#7]; a precise physical portrait of race, it has justly been remarked, is the sole deficiency in the pages of Bruce and of Burckhardt.

The temperament of the Hijazi is not unfrequently the pure nervous, as the height of the forehead and the fine texture of the hair prove. Sometimes the bilious, and rarely the sanguine, elements predominate; the lymphatic I never saw. He has large nervous centres, and well-formed spine and brain, a conformation favourable to longevity. Bartema well describes his colour as a “dark leonine”; it varies from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are attributed by the people to blood. The skin is hard, dry, and soon wrinkled by exposure. The xanthous complexion is rare, though not unknown in cities, but the leucous does not exist. The crinal hair is frequently lightened by bleaching, and the pilar is browner than the crinal. The voice is strong and clear, but rather barytone than bass: in anger it becomes a shrill chattering like the cry of a wild animal. The look of a chief is dignified and grave even to pensiveness; the “respectable man’s” is self-sufficient and fierce; the lower orders look ferocious, stupid, and inquisitive. Yet there is not much difference in this point between men of the same tribe, who have similar pursuits which engender

[p.81] similar passions. Expression is the grand diversifier of appearance among civilised people: in the Desert it knows few varieties.

The Badawi cranium is small, ooidal, long, high, narrow, and remarkable in the occiput for the development of Gall’s second propensity: the crown slopes upwards towards the region of firmness, which is elevated; whilst the sides are flat to a fault. The hair, exposed to sun, wind, and rain, acquires a coarseness not natural to it[FN#8]: worn in Kurun[FN#9]—ragged elf-locks,—hanging down to the breast, or shaved in the form Shushah, a skull-cap of hair, nothing can be wilder than its appearance. The face is made to be a long oval, but want of flesh detracts from its regularity. The forehead is high, broad, and retreating: the upper portion is moderately developed; but nothing can be finer than the lower brow, and the frontal sinuses stand out, indicating bodily strength and activity of character. The temporal fossa are deep, the bones are salient, and the elevated zygomata combined with the “lantern-jaw,” often give a “death’s-head” appearance to the face. The eyebrows are long, bushy, and crooked, broken, as it were, at the angle where “Order” is supposed to be, and bent in sign of thoughtfulness. Most popular writers, following De Page,[FN#10] describe the Arab eye as large, ardent,

[p.82] and black. The Badawi of the Hijaz, and indeed the race generally, has a small eye, round, restless, deep-set, and fiery, denoting keen inspection with an ardent temperament and an impassioned character. Its colour is dark brown or green-brown, and the pupil is often speckled. The habit of pursing up the skin below the orbits, and half closing the lids to exclude glare, plants the outer angles with premature crows’-feet. Another peculiarity is the sudden way in which the eye opens, especially under excitement. This, combined with its fixity of glance, forms an expression now of lively fierceness, then of exceeding sternness; whilst the narrow space between the orbits impresses the countenance in repose with an intelligence not destitute of cunning. As a general rule, however, the expression of the Badawi face is rather dignity than that cunning for which the Semitic race is celebrated, and there are lines about the mouth in variance with the stern or the fierce look of the brow.

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