Nothing Renders The Arab Thief So Active As The Chance Of Stealing A Good Weapon. [FN#20] Probably, Because Water Is Usually Found In Such Places.

In the wild parts of the country, wells are generally protected by some fortified building, for men consider themselves

Safe from an enemy until their supply of water is cut off. [FN#22] Near Al-Hamra, at the base of the Southern hills, within fire of the forts, there is a fine spring of sweet water. All such fountains are much prized by the people, who call them "Rock-water," and attribute to them tonic and digestive virtues. [FN#23] As far as I could discover, the reason of the ruinous state of the country at present is the effect of the old Wahhabi and Egyptian wars in the early part of the present century, and the misrule of the Turks. In Arabia the depopulation of a village or a district is not to be remedied, as in other countries, by an influx of strangers; the land still belongs to the survivors of the tribe, and trespass would be visited with a bloody revenge. [FN#24] Without these forts the Turks, at least so said my companions, could never hold the country against the Badawin. There is a little amour propre in the assertion, but upon the whole it is true. There are no Mohammed Alis, Jazzars, and Ibrahim Pachas in these days. [FN#25] To "halal" is to kill an animal according to Moslem rites: a word is wanted to express the act, and we cannot do better than to borrow it from the people to whom the practice belongs. [FN#26] He is now dead, and has been succeeded by a son worse than himself. [FN#27] The greatest of all its errors was that of appointing to the provinces, instead of the single Pasha of the olden time, three different governors, civil, military, and fiscal, all depending upon the supreme council at Constantinople. Thus each province has three plunderers instead of one, and its affairs are referred to a body that can take no interest in it. [FN#28] Ziyad bin Abihi was sent by Al-Mu'awiyah, the Caliph, to reform Al-Basrah, a den of thieves; he made a speech, noticed that he meant to rule with the sword, and advised all offenders to leave the city. The inhabitants were forbidden under pain of death to appear in the streets after evening prayers, and dispositions were made to secure the execution of the penalty. Two hundred persons were put to death by the patrol during the first night, only five during the second, and not a drop of blood was shed afterwards. By similar severity, the French put an end to assassination at Naples, and the Austrians at Leghorn. We may deplore the necessity of having recourse to such means, but it is a silly practice to salve the wound which requires the knife. [FN#29] These remarks were written in 1853:

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