The Favourite Food On The Line Of March Is Meat Cut Into Strips And
Sun-Dried.
This, with a bag of milk-balls[FN#56]
[P.118] and a little coffee, must suffice for journey or campaign. The
Badawin know neither fermented nor distilled liquors, although Ikhs ya’l
Khammar! (Fie upon thee, drunkard!) is a popular phrase, preserving the
memory of another state of things. Some clans, though not all, smoke
tobacco. It is generally the growth of the country called Hijazi or
Kazimiyah; a green weed, very strong, with a foul smell, and costing
about one piastre per pound. The Badawin do not relish Persian tobacco,
and cannot procure Latakia: it is probably the pungency of the native
growth offending the delicate organs of the Desert-men, that caused
nicotiana to be proscribed by the Wahhabis, who revived against its
origin a senseless and obsolete calumny.
The almost absolute independence of the Arabs, and of that noble race
the North American Indians of a former generation, has produced a
similarity between them worthy of note, because it may warn the
anthropologist not always to detect in coincidence of custom identity
of origin. Both have the same wild chivalry, the same fiery sense of
honour, and the same boundless hospitality: elopements from tribe to
tribe, the blood feud, and the Vendetta are common to the to. Both are
grave and cautious in demeanour, and formal in manner,—princes in rags or
paint. The Arabs plunder pilgrims; the Indians, bands of trappers; both
glory in forays, raids, and cattle-lifting; and both rob according to
certain rules.
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