“Vulgarity” and
affectation, awkwardness and embarrassment, are weeds of civilised
growth, unknown to the People of the Desert.[FN#16] Yet their manners
are sometimes dashed with a strange ceremoniousness. When two frends
meet, they either embrace or both extend the right hands, clapping palm
to palm; their foreheads are either pressed together, or their heads
are moved from side to side, whilst for minutes together mutual
inquiries are made and answered. It is a breach of decorum, even when
eating, to turn the back upon a person, and if a Badawi
[p.86] does it, he intends an insult. When a man prepares coffee, he
drinks the first cup: the Sharbat Kajari of the Persians, and the
Sulaymani of Egypt,[FN#17] render this precaution necessary. As a
friend approaches the camp,—it is not done to strangers for fear of
startling them,—those who catch sight of him shout out his name, and
gallop up saluting with lances or firing matchlocks in the air. This is
the well-known La’ab al-Barut, or gunpowder play. Badawin are generally
polite in language, but in anger temper is soon shown, and, although
life be in peril, the foulest epithets—dog, drunkard, liar, and infidel—are
discharged like pistol-shots by both disputants.
The best character of the Badawi is a truly noble compound of
determination, gentleness, and generosity. Usually they are a mixture
of worldly cunning and great simplicity, sensitive to touchiness,
good-tempered souls, solemn and dignified withal, fond of a jest, yet
of a grave turn of mind, easily managed by a laugh and a soft word, and
placable after passion, though madly revengeful after injury. It has
been sarcastically said of the Benu-Harb that there is not a man
“Que s’il ne violoit, voloit, tuoit, bruloit
Ne fut assez bonne personne.”
The reader will inquire, like the critics of a certain modern
humourist, how the fabric of society can be supported by such material.
In the first place, it is a kind of societe leonine, in which the
fiercest, the strongest, and the craftiest obtains complete mastery
over his fellows, and this gives a
[p.87] keystone to the arch. Secondly, there is the terrible
blood-feud, which even the most reckless fear for their posterity. And,
thirdly, though the revealed law of the Koran, being insufficient for
the Desert, is openly disregarded, the immemorial customs of the Kazi
al-Arab (the Judge of the Arabs)[FN#18] form a system stringent in the
extreme.
The valour of the Badawi is fitful and uncertain. Man is by nature an
animal of prey, educated by the complicated relations of society, but
readily relapsing into his old habits. Ravenous and sanguinary
propensities grow apace in the Desert, but for the same reason the
recklessness of civilisation is unknown there. Savages and
semi-barbarians are always cautious, because they have nothing valuable
but their lives and limbs.
