Withered Crones Abound In The Camps, Where Old Men
Are Seldom Seen.
The sword and the sun are fatal to
“A green old age, unconscious of decay.”
The manners of the Badawin are free and simple: “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.
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