'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎13v] (26/72)

12
had to be unloaded. Then, as no muleteer will make his animals swim, they had all to be
got into boats, while their burdens were taken over on kalaks, or rafts. These are of the
pattern met with on the Kabul river, between Jal^bad and Attock; platforms made of
branches laid over rows of inflated goat skins. They are not thought safe for mules or
horses. The consequence is that while the animals are taken across in boats, their loads,
committed on rafts to the current, are landed in the wilds,perhaps a couple of miles lower
down. The fact of Tiknt, though about the only important settlement between Mosul and
Baghdad, being left unequipped either with post or telegraph is but one of other signs
of the slackness of the central government. Communications with head-quarters are, how
ever, kept up in a desultory way by messengers ; and for the first time since leaving Bagh
dad letters were received.
Section VI.—Localised Bedouin east of Tigris.
Eastward of Tiknt the Tigris washes another vast pastoral steppe, known as Al
Hawija. Arabia contains as many hdwis and hawtjas as
Al Hawija. India does dodbs, or England holms. Both are geographi
cal terms, descriptive, jazivci, of certain dispositions of land relatively to rivers bound
ing or passing through them. Their etymologies being rather obscure, it is difficult strictly
to define them. But with regard to the hawija now before us a glance at the map will
show that, while divided into a northern and a southern portion by the Hamnn range of
mountains, it is nearly altogether inclosed by rivers.
If we except the Anglo-Saxons, none have shown a stronger tendency than the Arabs
to push over the world. From east to west, from the
Colonizing tendency of the Arabs. Senegal to the Indus, their colonies have been planted ;
and between north and south, they are scattered from Euphrates to Madagascar. Between
them and us there is this difference that while we mostly point towards regions where
cities can be founded, and wealth accumulated, they make for wildernesses favourable only
to the Bedouin life. Whatever European savants may hold, the Arabs themselves regard
Najd as at once the birthplace and stronghold of their race. Every family whose roots are
there is Arab, no matter if settled in a Syrian or Levantine city. But if the ancestors are
not Najdian, then neither are the offshoots Arabs.
Yet all Arabs are not the same. Those who have set up their Lares and Penates in
towns, and so become mere units in mixed populations.
Different Arab types. ma y be left out of view. On them the Bedouin looks very
much as the MacGregors did on their Glasgow cousin. Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Passing from
the true Najdian, i.e., wholly nomadic or shepherd type, the view has to be carried through
a series of gradations to tribes of whom it is hard to say whether they should be called
Bedouin or FaMMn. A community passing at the present time from the one condition to
the other has been seen above in the Dilem. And the dominant population of Al Hawijah
Ubaid—form another, though less advanced, exemplification of the same process.
These trace their origin to the ancient Arab tribe of Zubaid, renowned in early Caliphate
annals. The name of their leading Shekh is Ali As S&dun. Tents still suffice them; and
they are often on the move from pasturage to pasturage with their flocks and herds. But
their connections with Najd are loosening; they never leave their own limits ; they by no
means despise the plough, and, least Bedouin trait of all, they collect for the Mosul
Government its dues on herds and crops. And yet in all their confines it is doubtful if
even the smallest hamlet occurs. Different tracts of ground have received various names
from peculiarities of configuration or other geographical features. Such are Al Iysdm y
Al Amlah, Al Khir, Al Aith, and others. But a mistake would be made if any one
from seeing such places marked on maps were to infer that they were permanent settle
ments.
The foregoing notes were made while the kdfila stood fast for a few days opposite
Tikrit. Miserable as the town was, its attractions well diverted the attention of the Bagh
dad Wclli's guard or escort.
Towards dusk the day the tents were pitched, when standing on the river's brink, a
moving object midstream was noticed. Gradually this was
The Sa-y^h. f , . , , , ,. ,
seen to be a swimmer, in whose hand was his mare s
halter, and on his head her saddle ; with his own clothes (a very trifling matter) a top of
it! Presently there came out of the water, shivering with cold, and mare in hand, a Be
douin. Though startled at the sight of, as he thought, an Osmanli officer, desert self-posses
sion soon asserted itself, and as he hurriedly dressed, without however showing any more