Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/86

72 never cease. At this the old man beamed upon us, recognizing the delicate compliment, and was in the best mood to impart the desired information. Thus encouraged, I began:

"How many Bedaween are there in the Peninsula of Sinai?"

"I have three thousand men-at-arms." This is the way in which a population is reckoned, by the number of their spears; of men capable of bearing arms. On the desert one never meets an Arab without a sword at his side or a gun slung on his back. The sword is commonly old and rusty, and the gun plugged up at the muzzle, showing that it is seldom fired off. But either sword or gun is the badge of a man-at-arms, who, in case of necessity, may be called by his sheikh into the field. I could not help thinking that such a rabble, armed only with flintlocks or matchlocks, could not be very formidable. Soldiers they could hardly be called. I never saw any of them training in companies, or showing signs of military discipline. A few hundred men, armed with breechloaders, could march anywhere from one end of the Peninsula to the other. But it would have been a want of tact to raise a question as to the skill or prowess of the Bedaween of Sinai: I only sought to know their numbers.

Leaving the field of war for that of love, I asked about their marriage customs — how the daughters of the desert were wooed and won. The old sheikh took his long pipe from his mouth, and while the smoke curled into the air, he made answer in substance thus:

"Among the Arabs a maiden has nothing whatever to say in regard to her marriage, being subject in all things to the authority of her parents. She does not even see the man whom they have chosen for her, or look upon his face until the affair is settled, when she is carried veiled to