And, To Cut Short A Disquisition

[P.101] which might be prolonged indefinitely, there is in the Semitic dialect a copiousness of rhyme which leaves

The poet almost unfettered to choose the desired expression.[FN#38] Hence it is that a stranger speaking Arabic becomes poetical as naturally as he would be witty in French and philosophic in German. Truly spake Mohammed al-Damiri, “Wisdom hath alighted upon three things—the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese, and the tongues of the Arabs.”

The name of Harami—brigand—is still honourable among the Hijazi Badawin. Slain in raid or foray, a man is said to die Ghandur, or a brave. He, on the other hand, who is lucky enough, as we should express it, to die in his bed, is called Fatis (carrion, the corps creve of the Klephts); his weeping mother will exclaim, “O that my son had perished of a cut throat!” and her attendant crones will suggest, with deference, that such evil came of the will of Allah. It is told of the Lahabah, a sept of the Auf near Rabigh, that a girl will refuse even her cousin unless, in the absence of other opportunities, he plunder some article from the Hajj Caravan in front of the Pasha’s links. Detected twenty years ago, the delinquent would have been impaled; now he escapes with a rib-roasting. Fear of the blood-feud, and the certainty of a shut road to future travellers, prevent the Turks proceeding to extremes.

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