Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/273

Rh MILITARY RESOURCES.] ARABIA 253 Courage Ar.ih women. the extreme heat of the climate, and the scarcity of avail able provisions, would make even those provinces hard to attack, harder to retain. A third cause is in the broad strips of desert that gird the central districts as with a moat of sand, and send long arms of barrenness here and there into the heart of the cultivated or pastoral regions, so as to render military operations on a large scale in the interior almost impossible. A fourth and a very serious obstacle to invasion is the character of the inhabitants. Personal courage, wonderful endurance of privation, fixity of purpose, and a contempt of death rare even in the bravest Europeans, are qualities common to almost every race, tribe, and clan that compose the Arab nation ; and though their undisciplined troops are unfitted to meet a better trained enemy in a regular battle, in skirmishing and harassing they have few equals, while at close quarters their individual impetuosity often disconcerts the more mechanical fortitude of organised regiments. To this our own troops gave testimony in the engagements of Shenaz, 1810, and of Eas-el-Hadd, 1819 and 1820, when, with swords and spears alone, the Arabs of Oman maintained a desperate struggle against guns and bayonets, neither giv ing nor receiving quarter. Nor are they wholly ignorant of tactics, their armies, when engaged in regular war, being divided into centre and wings, with skirmishers in front, and a reserve behind, often screened at the outset of the engagement by the camels of the expedition. These animals, kneeling, and ranged in long parallel rows, form a sort of entrenchment, from behind which the soldiers of the main body fire their matchlocks, while the front divi sions, opening out, act on either flank of the enemy. This arrangement of troops may be traced in Arab records as far back as the 5th century, and has often been exemplified during the Wahhabee wars in our own day. The military contingent of Xejd, including that of all the adjoining provinces that constitute central Arabia, Jebel Shomer excepted, is reckoned by Palgrave at 47,300 from among the settled, and at about 8000 from among the nomade inhabitants. That of Shomer is estimated by the same authority at 14,000 of the first, and at about 16,000 of the second category. Oman, including the neighbouring and allied districts, is said to supply about 112,000, all from towns or villages. We thus obtain a total of about 197,300 fighting men for what represents a full half of the Arab peninsula. If, therefore, we calculate the entire military force of the land from Suez to Aden, and from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, at 400,000 fighting men, we shall probably be not far from the truth. But while remembering, on the one hand, that this is no standing army, nor composed of regular and disciplined soldiers, it should not be forgotten that, in case of invasion, their energy, and, it may be, their numbers, would be doubled by the enthusiasm of patriot ism ; and that not every male only, but every woman would, in the excitement of the struggle, take part in the national defence. of Indeed, at all times Arab women have distinguished themselves by their bravery hardly less than Arab men. Records of armed heroines occur frequently in the chronicles or myths of the pre-Islamitic time ; and in authentic history the Battle of the Camel, 656 A.D., where Ayeshah, the wife of Mahomet, headed the charge, is only the first of a number of instances in which Arab amazons have taken, sword in hand, no inconsiderable share in the wars and victories of Islam. Even now it is the custom for an Arab force to be always accompanied by some courageous maiden, who, mounted on a blackened camel, leads the onslaught, singing verses of encouragement for her own, of insult for the opposing tribe. Round her litter the fiercest of the battle rages, and her capture or death is the signal of utter rout ; it is hers also to head the triumph after the victory of her clan. There is little education, in our sense of the word, in Education. Arabia. Among the Bedouins there are, of course, no schools, and few, even of the most elementary character, in the towns or villages. Where they exist, little beyond the mechanical reading of the Koran, and the equally mechanical learning of it by rote, is taught. On the other hand, Arab male children, brought up from early years among the grown-up men of the house or tent, learn more from their own parents and at home than is common in other countries ; reading and writing are in most instances thus acquired, or rather transmitted ; besides such general principles of grammar and eloquence, often of poetry and history, as the elders themselves may be able to impart. To this family schooling too are due the good manners, politeness, and self-restraint that early distinguish Arab children. In the very few instances where a public school of a higher class exists, writing, grammar, and rhetoric sum up its teachings. Law and theology, in the narrow sense that both these words have in the Islamitic system, are explained in afternoon lectures given in most mosques ; and some verses of the Koran, with one of the accepted commentaries, that of El-Beidawee for example, form the basis of the instruction. Great attention is paid to accuracy of grammar and Dialects, purity of diction throughout Arabia ; yet something of a dialectic difference may be observed in the various districts. The purest Arabic, that which is as nearly as possible identical in the choice of words and in its inflections with the language of the Koran, is spoken in Nejd, and the best again of that in the province of Sedeyr. Next in purity comes the Arabic of Shomer. Throughout the Hejaz in general, the language, though extremely elegant, is not equally correct; in Hasa, Bahreyn, and Oman, it is de cidedly influenced by the foreign element called Naba- thsean, that removes it still further from its original cha racter. In Yemen, as in other southern districts of the peninsula, Arabic merges by insensible degrees into the Himyaritic or African dialect of Hadramaut and Malirah. The Arabic spoken by the nomade or Bedouin tribes, especially those of the north, is tolerably correct, but the pronunciation is often inexact. The principal territorial divisions of Arabia have been already Territorial indicated, but a detailed list may here not be out of place. They divisions, are, accordingly, on the western side The Hejaz, subject in great measure to Ottoman authority, and Hejaz. extending from 28 to 21 N. lat. Its principal towns are YAMBO and JiDDAHontlie sea-coast, MEDINAH and MECCA in the interior; all of which are separately described in the articles under these head ings. The inhabitants are partly nomade, partly settled, in about equal proportions. The Hejaz includes the Beled-el-Haram, of sacred territory, immediately adjoining Mecca ; and the Taif, a mountainous but fertile district to the S.E. of that town. Jebel Aseer, a mountainous tract along the coast immediately Jebel south of the Hejaz. Its inhabitants are of the Wahhabee sect, and are Aseer. governed by their own sheykhs, with an emeer residing at Kolakh, the principal town or rather village of the region. The Turks have lately invaded it, but to no great purpose. Aboo Areesh, along the coast, from 17 40 to 15 50 N. lat. This Aboo district, now occupied by the Turks, detached itself from Yemen Areesh. about a century ago. Its inhabitants live in villages : the soil is poor, but the fisheries abundant. Tehamah. This name is given to the shore strip from 15 50 to Tehamah. Aden, 12 47 N. lat. Its principal towns are Loheya, Hodeydeh, and Mokha ; the two former of these are seaports, of 4000 or 5000 souls each ; the last is celebrated for its export of coffee, but its popula tion does not exceed 8000 souls at most. There are numerous fish ing villages along the coast, and some inland hamlets ; the district is now partially occupied by the Turks. Yemen Under this title are included thirty mountain districts, Yemen, dependent on the &quot;imam&quot; or prince of Yemen, who resides at Sanaa, the capital, a town which is said, in the extent of its edifices and &quot;ardeus, to have once rivalled Damascus, but which at present scarcely contains 20,000 inhabitants. It is surrounded by turreted walls, with seven gates: the moscjues, public baths, and market-