"كتيّب سوريا (بما في ذلك فلسطين). لندن: إدارة استخبارات الأركان البحرية، يونيو ١٩١٩" [و‎‎٣‎٢‎٠] (٧٣٨/٦٤٤)

INHABITANTS
633
corn-land or good pasture. In this region, as in others, the
people are in the habit of living out in tents during the harvest
season.
Fowls being universally kept, eggs are commonly obtain
able. Meat, where eaten, is usually mutton ; only Christians
and Jews as a rule eat beef. Cheese is made from the milk of
goats and sheep, as well as from that of cows.
Arab Tribes .—The Arabs of the region are Ma‘azeh (half-
fellahin), not breeding camels, but asses and a few horses, with
herds of goats, sheep and cattle.
In the SE. of Ardh el-Kerak are the Hejaya, 550 families
(according to Musil) ranging between Seil el-Hesa and Lejjun.
The Nu‘eimat, dispossessed of the greater part of this territory
by the Hejaya, are now a small tribe of about 80 families
with the Khureisheh, another small tribe of about 100
families, next them on the west.
The country W. of these tribes, bounded by Seil el-Hesa,
the Dead Sea, Seil edh-Dhra‘ and a line running ESE. past
Kerak town, was formerly the territory of the El-‘Amr, now
also a dispossessed and reduced tribe of about 100 families.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the El-‘Amr had
fallen into the debt of the people of Kerak, who, under the
capable leadership of their chief clan the Mejaliyeh, gradually
obtained possession of all their best land and now hold it as far
S. as Dhat-Ras, and ‘Aineh on the N. bank of Seil el-Hesa.
A similar process of ejection was carried out about the middle
of the century against the Hama’ideh or Hamideh, once
chief owners of all the land N. of Kerak. This tribe lost
the country between the town of Kerak and W. Beni Hammad,
with the fine agricultural land on the plateau about Rabbeh,
Qasr Rabbeh, and Shihan, which the Mejaliyeh kept for them
selves. The Keraklyeh thus own the pick of the land along
the plateau for a distance of some 35 miles N. of Seil el-Hesa,
their eastern borders running from J. Shihan to Lejjun, and
thence down to Dhat Ras and ‘Aineh. The Hama’ideh,
however, remain a large tribe of 800 families, since they still
range the wide area from W. Beni Hammad to W. Zerqa