es by the side of the great living stream of the Wuld 'Aly
Arabs moving from the Arabian Desert to the pastures of Jaulan. The
procession marched six or seven abreast, and in families of from 20 to
150. The camels had curious baskets fixed on their humps, and in these
were stowed women and children, and kids and dogs, while cooking
utensils were hung all round the baskets, and by the sides of their dams
trotted little baby camels. The stream flowed past silent and orderly,
with here and there a spearman riding by the side of his family. At
short intervals flocks of sheep and goats marched parallel with the
living stream.

A party of Arab horsemen were reclining on a little hill with their
spears stuck in the ground watching their people pass. We rode up to
them, and their chief received us with great courtesy, and urged us to
await the arrival of the cavalry with the Sheikh, to whom I had once
done a favour which they remembered. We remained about an hour, and
still the stream flowed past. The Arabs told us they had begun to move
at an early hour, and would continue on the march for days, and as far
as we could see, looking north and south, the procession was without
break or pause. They told us they could bring into the field 100,000
fighting men, and their people, they said, was "like the sand of the
sea." Never before or since have I seen such a swarm of human beings--"a
multitude that no man could number." Any trans-Jordanic colony would
have to calculate on the proximity of this horde, whose power has never
been broken, not even by Joshua nor Ibrahim Pasha, and whose rule in
their own land is supreme in virtue of their resistless might. Even the
Turkish Government bribe the Arabs in this region to let the Mohammedan
pilgrims pass to Mecca! How much black-mail would the prosperous colony
of infidels have to pay for permission to exist in the land of the
faithful? And supposing arrangements could be made to secure the
tolerance of the Bedawin, there would still remain the Druzes and
Circassians, and local sub-tribes and aggrieved _fellahin_, who would
form combinations to which an agricultural colony could offer no
effective resistance.

Mr. Oliphant speaks of driving the Arabs "back across the _Hadj_ road,
where a small cordon of soldiers, posted in the forts which now exist
upon it, would be sufficient to keep them in check." Turkish soldiers
would not be the slightest protection to a prosperous colony of
infidel