olonists to a great and terrible
danger. Travellers must have noticed that the _fellahin_ cultivate their
fields with long guns slung over their shoulders, and an armoury of
pistols and daggers in their belts. Why is this? Because, as the
proverb, tested by experience, has it--"A Turkish judge may be bribed by
three eggs, two of them rotten; and a _fellah_ may be murdered for his
jacket without a button upon it."

Mr. Oliphant came upon Circassians re-occupying deserted villages in the
midst of the Bedawin, and he takes the fact as "valuable evidence that
the problem of colonization by a foreign element, so far as the Arabs
are concerned, is by no means insoluble."[71] He seems to forget that
the traveller with empty pockets may whistle in the face of the
highwayman. The Circassians are settling in abandoned villages by the
wish of the authorities. They have the deep sympathy of all Moslems on
account of their sufferings. Besides, they have nothing to lose which
would compensate the Bedawin for the alienation of the Turkish
Government.

The case would be far different with a rich and prosperous colony of
foreigners supported by foreign capital.

In his hurried tour beyond Jordan, Mr. Oliphant came upon the Fudl Arabs
with 2,000 fighting men, and in their midst a colony of 300 Circassians.
In another place he came on a colony of 3,000 Circassians in the midst
of the Naim Arabs, who muster 4,000 fighting men. "The Anezeh Arabs, who
control," he says, "an area of about 40,000 square miles, and who can
bring over 100,000 horsemen and camel-drivers into the field," would be
on the borders of the colony, and the Druzes, who are born warriors, and
who inhabit Jebel-ed-Druze, he places at 50,000. Besides these there are
the Beni Sukhr, and other local tribes, whose fanaticism and cupidity
would be moved by the presence of a prosperous colony of foreigners.

On April 12, 1875, Dr. Thomson and I started from Der'a in a
southwesterly direction over wavy hills covered with splendid wheat, the
sides of the way ablaze with anemones. As we approached Remthey, we saw
what in the miragy atmosphere seemed a row of trees fifteen or twenty
miles long. I had been over the path before, and I was struck with this
new feature in the landscape. Soon it seemed to us that the line, as far
as we could see, was in motion, and as we approached closer to it, we
found that it was composed of camels. We spurred our horses, and soon we
found ourselv