Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/272

252 A K A B I A [CUSTOMS. are Smokinf au, sometimes procured; opium and hasheesh have also but few votaries in Arabia. On the other hand, wherever Wahhabeeism has left freedom of action, tobacco-smoking prevails, the manner of smoking varying considerably, according to the district. Among the Bedouins and the poorer classes of the upland regions a short pipe of clay, called a " sebeel," red or black, is in vogue. The wealthier townsmen prefer long pipes with large open bowls ; but the most frequent use is made of the water-pipe, or " narghileh," of which implement every form, kind, and dimension imaginable may be found in Arabia. The tobacco smoked is generally strong, and is either brought from the neighbourhood of Baghdad or grown in the country itself. The strongest quality is that of Oman ; the leaf is broad and coarse, and retains its green colour even when dried; a few whiffs have been known to produce absolute stupor. The aversion of the Wahhabees to tobacco is well known; they entitle it "mukhzee," or "the shameful," and its use is punished with blows, as the public use of wine would be elsewhere. Dress. In dress much variety prevails. The loose cotton drawers, girded at the waist, which in hot climates do duty for trousers, are not often worn, even by the upper classes, in Nejd or Yemamah, where a kind of silk dressing- gown is thrown over the long shirt; frequently, too, a brown or black cloak distinguishes the wealthier citizen ; his head-dress is in its character the same as that of the Bedouins namely, a handkerchief fastened round the head by a band only of better materials. But in Hejaz, Yemen, and Oman, turbans are by no means uncommon ; the ordinary colour is white ; they are worn over one or more skull-caps sometimes fifteen till the head is rather burdened than protected. Trousers also form part of the dress in the two former of these districts; and a voluminous sash, in which a dagger or an inkstand is stuck, is wrapped round the waist. Meanwhile the poorer folk and the villagers often content themselves with a broad piece of cloth round the loins, and another across the shoulders. In Oman trousers are rare, but over the shirt a long gown, of peculiar and somewhat close-fitting cut, dyed yellow, is often worn. The women in these provinces commonly put on loose drawers, and some add veils to their head-dresses ; they are fond of ornaments (gold and silver), and over charge themselves with them ; their hair is generally arranged in a long plait hanging down behind. All men allow their beards, whiskers, and moustaches full growth, though none of these are much to speak of, particularly among the Arabs of the south, who are a thin-haired race. Most shave their heads, and indeed all, strictly speaking, ought by Mahometan custom to do so ; but many, peasants especially, Bedouins, and the like, neglect it. An Arab seldom or never dyes his hair. Sandals are worn more often than shoes, but the heat of the ground in the day time allows none except the very poorest to go wholly barefoot. Lastly, though no class or occupation lays claim to any particular style or article of dress, legists, writers, imams, and others connected with the service of the mosques, generally affect greater amplitude and less variety of colour in their turbans and vestments than other people. Personal In person the Arabs are a remarkably handsome race, appearance tall, lithe, well-formed, dark-eyed, and dark-haired. De- ana quah- f orme( j individuals or dwarfs are rare among them ; nor, except leprosy, of which frequent instances may be met with throughout the peninsula, does any disease seem to be hereditary among them. The frequency of ophthalmia, though not in the virulent Egyptian form, is evidently attributable to the nature of the soil and the climate. They are scrupulously clean in their persons, adding to the prescribed ablutions of the Mahometan code frequent supererogatory washings of their own ; and take special care of their teeth, which are generally fine, though tooth ache is by no means unknown in Arabia. Simple and abstemious in their habits, they often reach an extreme yet healthy old age ; nor is it common among them for the faculties of the mind to give way sooner than those of the body. To sum up, physically and morally they yield to few races, if any, of mankind ; mentally, they surpass most, and are only kept back in the march of common progress by the remarkable defect of organising power and incapacity for combined action which they share with many other nations of the East, and some, it would seem, of the West also. Lax and imperfect as are their forms of government, it is with impatience that even these are borne ; and we have already seen that of the four caliphs who alone reigned if reign theirs could be called in Arabia proper, three died a violent death; and of the Wahhabee princes, the most genuine representatives in later times of pure Arab rule, almost all have met the same fate. Of the revenues of Arabia it would be difficult to form Revenue?, anything like a correct estimate. Palgrave has stated the yearly receipts of the Nejdean treasury, inclusive of the tribute then (1862) paid into it by Bahreyn and the west of Oman, to be nearly 106,000 sterling no very large sum. The revenues of Oman itself, then in a comparatively prosperous condition, are estimated by the same author at nearly ten times the amount, but may possibly have been overrated by him, as those of Yemen were perhaps by Niebuhr. Certainly the general condition of these provinces the restricted character of the cultivation ami the evident poverty (not absolute want, indeed, for that is rare) of the greater number of the inhabitants do not convey to the visitor the idea of large national wealth or extensive resources. There can, however, be no doubt that both the coast districts of Arabia, in their varied and valuable products, and the central plateau, with its palm- groves, well irrigation, and wide pasture-lands, might, under a judicious administration, become the sources of much greater revenues, both public and private, than is now the case. The mines, too, in the metamorphic dis tricts of Yemen and Oman, remain yet to be properly worked. As for the desert proper, which, as we have seen, occupies about one-third of the peninsula, it must, like the ocean of Childe Harold, remain what it is to the end of time. In the 7th century Arabia sent forth armies that Defence, attacked and conquered nearly half the then known world. But the secret of her conquests lay not in the number of her warriors, but in a resolute purpose, a unity of aim, and an enthusiasm which concentrated in itself and intensified every motive of human action. In later ages she has been reduced to the defensive, and has shown herself not alwa} r s eqxial even to that : witness her conquest by the Turks in the 16th, and by the Egyptians in the pre sent century. Once only, at the moment when Wahhabee union and zeal half restored for a few years the energy of early Islam, did her armies go forth to invade the neigh bouring territories of Mesopotamia and Syria ; but it was to plunder rather than to conquer, and the results lasted no longer than the invasions themselves. Yet on the defensive Arabia had much in her favour, and that from many causes. The first is, that there is little to defend, since, the coast of Yemen and the districts of Bahreyn and Oman excepted, there is very little to excite the cupidity of an invading, and nothing to satisfy the exigencies of an occupying force. The second is, that the mountainous nature of Yemen and Oman themselves,

and the narrowness of their labyrinthine defiles added to