our enemy. Had my wife betrayed
the hospitality of the tent, it should have drank her blood; and now,
you may use it against myself," he added, as he flung it at the
Mameluke's feet. This reverence for hospitality is one of the wild
virtues that has survived from the days of the patriarchs, and it is
singularly contrasted, yet interwoven with other and apparently opposite
tendencies. The Arab will rob you, if he is able; he will even murder
you, if it suits his purpose; but, once under the shelter of his tribe's
black tents, or having eaten of his salt by the wayside, you have as
much safety in his company as his heart's blood can purchase for you.
The Bedouins are extortionate to strangers, dishonest to each other, and
reckless of human life. On the other hand, they are faithful to their
trust, brave after their fashion, temperate, and patient of hardship and
privation beyond belief. Their sense of right and wrong is not founded
on the Decalogue, as may be well imagined, yet, from such principles as
they profess they rarely swerve. Though they will freely risk their
lives to steal, they will not contravene the wild rule of the desert. If
a wayfarer's camel sinks and dies beneath its burden, the owner draws a
circle round the animal in the sand, and follows the caravan. No Arab
will presume to touch that lading, however tempting. Dr. Robinson
mentions that he saw a tent hanging from a tree near Mount Sinai, which
his Arabs said had then been there a twelvemonth, and never would be
touched until its owner returned in search of it.

HORRORS OF AFRICAN WARFARE.

There appears to be a wild caprice amongst the institutions; if such
they may be called, of all these tropical nations. In a neighbouring
state to that of Abyssinia, the king, when appointed to the regal
dignity, retires into an island, and is never again visible to the eyes
of men but once--when his ministers come to strangle him; for it may not
be that the proud monarch of Behr should die a natural death. No men,
with this fatal exception, are ever allowed even to set foot upon the
island, which is guarded by a band of Amazons. In another border
country, called Habeesh, the monarch is dignified with the title of
Tiger. He was formerly Malek of Shendy, when it was invaded by Ismael
Pasha, and was even then designated by this fierce cognomen. Ismael,
Mehemet Ali's second son, advanced through Nubia claiming tribute and
submission from all the tribes Nemmir