Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/403

Rh system of government is adopted throughout the Turkish provinces. If this were once effected, I, for my own part, am far from believing that the Bedooeen could not be reclaimed, if proper measures were pursued to that end. The erection of a line of forts through the desert, and the offer of protection to such as should settle in the vicinity of the same, would, I am persuaded, induce many to abandon their nomade habits; a number of villages would spring up in the wilderness, commerce would flourish, the roads now closed to the merchant and traveller would be opened, and the way would thus be prepared for greater improvements, and eventually, it is to be hoped, for the preaching of the Gospel among the wild descendants of Abraham's injured and exiled son.

Mr. Layard has given a graphic account of his visit to the Shammar tribe, and of his reception by Sufoog, whom he met at El Hadhr about a year after the events related in the foregoing narrative. He also gives an interesting biography of that renowned chieftain, and of his murder by Nejib Pasha of Baghdad, in 1848, which will amply repay a careful perusal. The whole chapter is strikingly illustrative of the habits and customs of the Bedooeen, and of the form of government which prevails among those who inhabit the great desert east of the Euphrates.