Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/266

Rh 246 A E A B I A [ARAB KACE Feda, the stories of Antarah or Mohalhet, and the like concurs in representing the first settlement of the &quot;pure&quot; Arabs as made on the extreme south-western point of the peninsula, near Aden, and thence spreading northward and eastward over Yemen, Hadramaut, and Oman. A third is the name Himyar, or &quot; dusky,&quot; given now to the ruling class, now to the entire nation; a circumstance pointing, like the former, to African origin. A fourth is the Him- yaritic language now, indeed, almost lost, but some words of which have been preserved either in proper names or even in whole sentences handed down. They are African . in character, often in identity. Indeed, the dialect com monly used along the south-eastern coast hardly differs from that used by the Somawlee Africans on the opposite shore; but later intermixture of blood and constant inter course may have much to do with this. Fifthly, it is remarkable that where the grammar of the Arabic, now spoken by the &quot; pure&quot; Arabs, differs from that of the north, it approaches to or coincides with the Abyssinian. Now, it is well known to philologists that grammatical inflections are a much more abiding and intimate test of origin than separate nouns or even verbs. Sixthly, the pre-Islamitic institutions of Yemen and its allied provinces its mon archies, courts, armies, and serfs bear a marked resem blance to the historical Africo-Egyptian type, and even to the modern Abyssinian. Seventhly, the physical confor mation of the pure-blooded Arab inhabitants of Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman, and the adjoining districts the shape and size of the head, the slenderness of the lower limbs, the comparative scantiness of hair, and other particulars point in an African rather than an Asiatic direction. Eighthly, the general habits of the people, given to sedentary rather than nomade occupations, fond of village life, of society, of dance and music; good cultivators of the soil, tolerable traders, moderate artisans, but averse to pastoral pursuits have much more in common with the inhabitants of the African than with those of the western Asiatic continent. Lastly, the extreme facility of marriage which exists in all classes of the southern Arabs with the African races ; the fecundity of such unions; and the slightness or even absence of any caste feeling between the dusky &quot;pure&quot; Arab and the still darker native of modern Africa conditions different from those obtaining almost everywhere else may be regarded as pointing in the direc tion of a community of origin. Further indications are afforded both by local tradition and actual observation ; but they are of a nature to be scarcely appreciable, except by those whom long familiarity has rendered intimate with the races in question; besides, the above are, for average criticism, sufficient. Origin nf It is harder to determine with precision the origin of the Mastareb &quot; adscititious &quot; or &quot;Mustareb&quot; Arabs, and the circumstances under which they first peopled their half of the peninsula. Though in physical, mental, and lingual characteristics they offer too marked an affinity with the Arabs of the south to allow of any supposition except that of ultimate unity, so far as the stock is concerned; yet they present many and important divergences from them, and these divergences, whatever their nature, have all an Asiatic impress of their own. Such are their pastoral tendencies and proneness to nomade life; such the peculiarities of their idiom, drawing near to the Hebrew; such the strong clannish feeling, joined with a constant resistance to any thing like regal power or settled comprehensive organisa tion ; such even the outward and physical type. Time after time we may observe in their history, their litera ture, their institutions or the absence of them, their past, their present traits now Hebrew, now Syrian, now Chal- dcean, now even Tatar ; though the groundwork of the whole is undoubtedly identical with the Arab of the south. The probability, faintly indicated by tradition, is that at an early, indeed an absolutely pre-historic period, this branch of the Arab race, emigrating eastward, passed into Asia not like their congeners, at the southern, but at the north ern or isthmal extremity of the Red Sea; then pursued their inland way to the plains of Mesopotamia and Chal- daea, and perhaps even further; and after a long sojourn in these lands, during which they acquired the modifica tions, mental and physical, which distinguish them from their southern and more unchanged brethren, returned westward to the land already partly occupied by their kins men. This return would not be effected all at once, but by band after band, according to the pressure exercised on them by Iranian or Turanian neighbours, a fact wit nessed to by many of the northern pre-Islamitic traditions, as found in Ibn-Atheer, Tabreezec, and others ; while the well-known Ishmaelitic mythos, recorded alike in Hebrew and in Arab chronicles, probably points to the last batch of &quot; adscititious &quot; Arab immigrants, the special clan from which the family of Koreysh and the Prophet had origin. Once established on the same soil, the two branches would naturally early manifest a tendency to unite, suffi cient in time to produce a tolerable identity both of lan guage and of usages; while the superinduced modifications of character and manners may well have originated the rivalry and even enmity between the Arabs of the north, or &quot; Keysees,&quot; and those of Yemen, which, under various forms, has never ceased down to our own time. At present, however, the most important, as also the Actual best known division of the Arab race is that which scpa- divisions o rates them into &quot;Ahl Bedoo,&quot;or &quot;dwellers in the open land,&quot; thc Arab whence the common appellation of Bedouin; and &quot;Ahl,,. Hadr,&quot; or &quot; dwellers in fixed localities.&quot; The former class, living under tents, and occupying the waste country which lies in a vast circle between the coast and the central plateau, while to the north it joins on to the Syrian desert, are the best known to European travellers, with whom they often come in contact, and by whom they have sometimes been described with considerable exaggeration both as to their numbers and in other respects. The most trustworthy authorities regarding them are Niebuhr and Burckhardt. The Bedouins, then, are shepherds and herdsmen, reduced Mode of to an out-of-doors and roving life, partly by the intrinsic llie&amp;lt; nature of their occupations, partly by the special charac teristics of the country they belong to. For, while land, unsuited to all purposes except pasture, forms an unusually large proportion of the surface in the Arabian territory, the prolonged droughts of summer render considerable portions of it unfit even for that, and thus continually oblige the herdsmen to migrate from one spot to another in search of sufficient herbage and water for their beasts. The same causes also involve the Bedouins in frequent quarrels with each other regarding the use of some particular well or pasture-ground, besides reducing them not un frequently to extreme want, and thus making them plunderers of others in self-support. Lastly, the loneliness of the desert, far removed from the vigilant control of fixed law, order, or police, has, combined with the other circumstances, continued during generation after generation to leave a peculiar impress on a naturally bold, hardy, and enterpris ing race, till the terms Bedouin and brigand have, in the opinion of many, become synonymous. This opinion is, however, unjust. Professionally, and in Habits the ordinary course of their lives, Bedouins are only shep herds and herdsmen : their raids on each other, or their exploits in despoiling travellers and caravans, are but occa sional, though welcome and even exciting, exceptions to the common routine. Besides, their wars or forays among themselves, for they very rarely venture on a conflict with the better armed and better organised sedentary