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at once two such important sources of income, almost necessary to their existence, and being made sensible of their weakness in arms, they were effectually and permanently humbled.

In such a subdued and dependent state, the Moslem mind is far more accessible to the preacher of the gospel, than when puffed up, not only by the haughtiness which the religion of the false prophet in its very nature inspires, but also with a feeling of national and personal pride. But another cause, having more distinctly a specific tendency to wear off prejudice against Christianity, has been operating upon the character of the Tawarah. In former times, the monks of Mount Sinai, cut off from every other means of protection, found their only way to shield themselves against the depredations of their Bedaween neighbours, was to have protectors among these very Bedaweens themselves. Such protectors certain branches of the Tawarah tribes became, in consideration of receiving food, clothing, and money, in certain rations, together with the exclusive right of carrying pilgrims to and from the convent, as a compensation. In time these protectors amounted to much the largest part of the inhabitants of the peninsula, as is now the case, and what was at first an arrangement, sought by the monks for their own safety, became at last of much greater necessity to the protectors than to the protected. So that now the Arabs stand in more need of the bread of the convent, than the monks do of their protection. Of this the monks are beginning to make them sensible by diminishing their contributions. Still every one who comes to the convent is supplied with bread, and all who are in Cairo receive daily rations of two small loaves and a dish of cooked food; and they have the right of taking all travellers and pilgrims from the convent. This connexion with the convent, and with travellers, tends to wear off prejudice in two ways. Such frequent contact with Christians occasions personal acquaintances to be formed; and although the Christians whom they meet with are not always the best specimens of Christians, yet the general effect of extended acquaintance, that of enlarging one's friendly regards beyond his little circle of daily associates, is nevertheless produced. And then the substantial benefits they derive from the monks makes them regard them as benefactors. They declare, that were it not for the convent, they could not longer inhabit their country. They consider it an invaluable treasure, and actually have a great veneration for it. Their veneration extends to the monks, whom they regard as the favourites of heaven, sincerely believing that by reading a certain book they

VOL. XVII.

have the power of causing the rain to descend. A more earnest request I never received, than was urged by the sheik of our party, that we would induce the monks to make the proper use of this book; and as we approached the convent, on coming from Cairo, he besought us, even with tears, to open a certain window, which the monks knew of, in the ruined church on the top of Sinai, and which if opened, was sure to bring rain. In a word, in all our intercourse with the Tawarah, we discovered hardly any of that prejudice against Christianity which is so characteristic a trait of Mohammedanism: and I found a freedom in conversing with them on religious topics, which I have not often experienced in intercourse with any other followers of the Arabian prophet.

Other remarks which are applicable to the Bedaweens generally, as well as to the Tawarah, I shall reserve to the close of my communication.

Origin and Condition of the Jebeleeyeh.

One other class of people, inhabiting the region of Sinai, and still more accessible to Christian influence than the Bedaweens, remain to be treated of. They have already been mentioned, and are called Jebeleeyeh, (i. e. mountaineers.) Their history, as given us by the superior of the convent, is as follows:-When the emperor Justinian founded the convent, he sent hither two hundred Walachians, and ordered the governor of Egypt to send as many more Egyptians to be its serfs. Their descendants, as Mohammedanism spread, and the Arabs took possession of the country, were gradually led by oppression and fear, to renounce Christianity. The last Christian among them died some forty years ago. Now they have the religion, the costume, the language, and the manners of their Bedaween neighbours, but are still the serfs of the convent. Its power over them is unlimited, to execute, to sell, or to dispose of them in any other way it pleases. Five black loaves, about the size of one's fist, doled out every other day by the convent, is the allowance for a man, a smaller portion for a woman, and only one or two loaves for a child. When they labour for the convent, they are paid also in bread. The thorny, bitter herbs of the mountain, furnish the remainder of their food, and these having failed the last year, they were, many of them, the most pitiable objects I ever saw. Clothed in rags, or entirely naked, and reduced to actual starvation, they were little more than walking skeletons. Some dozens of them gathered round the door of the convent, as we left, and it was an enviable luxury to distribute among them even a small contribution for the supply of their

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pinching necessities. I asked the superior if he knew their whole number. He confessed his ignorance, but estimated it at fifteen hundred or two thousand, which in my opinion is far too high. I inquired if they never thought of converting them back to Christianity, and he said tha within the last few years two had been bapt tised, who still remained firm adherents to the Christian faith. The others, and the Bedaweens also, he assured me, instead of being offended at this step, would all of them gladly follow the example, if they could thereby secure to themselves a subsistence.

On the

Were this convent a missionary estab. lishment, maintaining its present relations towards the surrounding people, as far as those relations could be sustained consistent with Christian principles, how many advantages would it have, for diffusing among them the saving knowledge of the gospel, with all the temporal blessings that follow in its train! But as it is, nothing is done for their spiritual benefit. contrary, its very serfs have been suffered to embrace Mohammedanism, which might doubtless have been prevented by proper instruction and care. The convent is neither a missionary establishment, nor would it, there is great reason to fear, favour missions. Should it oppose, it has influence enough to break up any missionary establishment which might be commenced here. Were it not for this, and should it be resolved to attempt missionary labours among the Bedaweens, Mount Sinai, according to my present knowledge, would be the place where I should recommend the first attempt to be made.

ney, we found no stream, nor well, no spring of any kind, nor any soil for culti vation, or grass for the pasturage of cattle. It was mostly an elevated table land, covered with coarse pebbles and loose sand, and our camels subsisted upon a few herbs, quenching their thirst even from a puddle of rain water from which we also filled our water skins. In all this region the Arabs neither sow, nor have any horned cattle or horses. As we advanced northward, we began to find wells of water at long inter vals, a light soil occasionally appeared in the bottom of the valleys, and a few solitary spears of grass peered up among the stones; until we reached the region in which the patriarchs pastured their flocks, where the pure water of the wells of Beersheba quenched our thirst, hills and valleys were every where covered with grass, and many fields of grain, the work of Bedaween ploughmen, were waving in the breeze. The Bedaweens of this region are rich in cattle and horses; and the possession of the latter animal makes them formidable to their enemies. For the camel, possessing all the timidity of the sheep, is good for nothing in battle except for flight.

All these tribes have distinct regions or districts, in which they pitch; but in these they pretend to no exclusive right to the soil or pasture. The soil, they say, belongs to God; and wherever another friendly tribe may choose to pasture, it meets with no interference. Hence now, as in some former times, when drought pinches the inhabitants of the more arid parts of the desert, they migrate for pasturage and hover around the borders of Palestine, or the banks of the Nile. We encountered several companies from the great eastern Desert of Teeh, and the Tribes occupying desert, taking these two directions.

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II. The desert of Tech, we traversed on our way from Akabah to Jerusalem, in its whole length from south to north, until we reached the borders of Palestine at Beersheba. These borders are now not distinctly marked, the whole of the territory of Simeon, and much of the south of Judah, being now Bedaween ground. Classing the tribes that pitch here with those that roam in the Teeh proper, the following will be a tolerably complete list of their tribes, viz., the Haiwat, Teigahah, Terabeen, Azaziweh, Saeedeeyeh, Dhullam, Jehaleen, Kudeirat, Suwararikeh, and Jebarat. A few more names might be added, but as they represent minor tribes of only a few families, I will save you the trouble of decyphering them. The whole desert is inhabited by them, but only in proportion to the pasturage it affords, and the water to be found in it so that the southern part is but thinly peopled. Here, for five days' jour

All the several tribes above mentioned are at peace with each other, and some of them are united by leagues offensive and defen sive; or, as one of our guides expressed it in rhythmical Arabic, "They are sworn to be friends while water is found in the ocean, and no hair grows on the palm of the hand." This good understanding among themselves renders their country safe to travellers, for whichever of them become the traveller's guides, he is in no danger of interference from the rest. Their contiguity to the Egyptian government also, both on the south and on the north, keeps them in check: and I consider their country now perfectly safe, if one only observes a few Bedaween rules, which are simple and no impediment. At any rate, we tra velled the whole distance above mentioned without a guard, and encountered no daa ger, and were equally unmolested in crossing the same region in our way from Hebron to the mountains of Edom and back.

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This safety is favourable to farther inquiries into the moral state of these Bedaween tribes, and to any effort that may be made to evangelize them. Yet there is sometimes danger from another source. These tribes are, many of them, at war with others to the east of the Arabah. They make marauding excursions among their enemies not unfrequently, and their enemies occasionally cross the Arabah, and fall upon them. These foraging adventures are the delight of the Arab of the desert. We came near encountering more than one of them in another part of our journey, and have great reason to be thankful that we did not. For the traveller who falls into their hands is sure to be robbed, and may lose his life.

We passed through the territories of seven of these tribes, but with only one of them did we have much to do. The Bedaweens are careful to pitch as rarely as possible near any travelled road, and in passing along the great routes you rarely see their tents. One of these tribes furnished us guides and camels for our excursion to Petra. It is small and poor, and not a good specimen of the general character of the Bedaweens of these parts. They were faithful in the accomplishment of their journey, and greater capacity or readiness to endure fatigue than they exhibited, we could not often desire. Having occasion once, in order to escape from danger, to travel on our camels twenty-four hours out of thirty, they walked nearly the whole distance, without once complaining either for themselves or their camels, although the latter had next to nothing to eat.

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a greater disregard for truth than they exhibited, I have never found. We actually could put confidence in nothing that they said, merely upon their testimony. In instances without number, after re-questioning and cross-questioning, with all the skill I possessed, did we find their information entirely contradicted by our own observation, or by some subsequent declaration of their own. This was owing, partly to their reluctance to give information to strangers, partly to actual ignorance, and very much to sheer carelessness. We found our Bedaween guides generally very reserved at first; but this reserve I was able, in every case but the present, to overcome, after two or three days' acquaintance; and even here it yielded in part, but the ignorance and carelessness remained. Indeed the Bedaweens generally, though within their own territory they know the name of every mountain and valley, and almost every stone, yet at the distance of two or three days' journey, their information becomes very vague and imperfect; and with very

few exceptions, the points of most interest to the traveller they care so little about, as to be brought with difficulty to any exactness of description.

As to the numbers of the Bedaweens whom I have classed under the present general division, I am unable to give you any satisfactory estimate. The information necessary for this we could have obtained only by actual intercourse for some time with the different tribes. I satisfy myself by comparing an Arab tribe with a village of peasants, and my opinion of the tribes of these deserts is, that they will vary from the size of a small village, to that of a moderate town. I do not believe that, with perhaps two or three exceptions, they will be found to exceed this estimate.

Tribes East of the Arabah and the Elonitic Gulf.

III. The mountains east of the Arabah and of the Elonitic branch of the Red Sea, we approached at Akabah, and actually entered for a short distance in our visit to Petra. They form a continued range, and are the western boundary of the great eastern desert, which, in all the northern part, is a high table land. In the part of these that came under our observation, which was around the capital of the kingdom of Edom, they are watered with regular rains, and above, to a considerable extent, are arable soil, though it is much inferior in quality to that of the mountains of Judah. Indeed they are now, to some extent, cultivated; and I have a list of some ten or a dozen villages, some of them large, inhabited by peasants who till the soil. But none of these are to the south of Petra; though there are in that direction three or four encampments of peasants, dwelling in tents, like nomads, yet not considered Bedaweens.

The Bedaweens of these regions, with which our inquiries made us acquainted, consist of the Kaabeneh and Hejaya, in the most northern part; two divisions of the great Haweitat tribe, one inhabiting the mountains of Edom, and subdivided into the Abu Rasheed Jazy and Alaween, and the other inhabiting the region around Muweilih, near the shore of the Red Sea; also the Ammareen, likewise in Ancient Edom, the Maareh, the Amram, and the Mesadeeyeh.

With these tribes we had more to do than could have been expected from the short excursion we made in their country. Our guides from Akabah, to within a day's journey of Beersheba were Amran. Their tribe occupies the region bordering upon Akabah to the south-east. The nature of their country may be inferred from the fact

that they cultivate nothing; and, with the exception of four or five horses, owned by the principal sheik, they have neither horses nor horned cattle. They are themselves respectable in numbers, and are leagued with the branch of the Haweitat, who are their neighbours on the south-east. From these Haweitat we had guides for two days in the neighbourhood of Beersheba. They were a part of a considerable body which we encountered all the way from Akabah, who were migrating from the region around Muweilih, to the borders of Palestine for pasturage; the dearth in their own country having left them none for their camels. They were real sons of the desert, as uncultivated as their own barren wilds, strangers to every law but such conventional usages as even the ungoverned Arab acknowledges, and wild in look and character as the American Indian, and as patient under privation as the camels they rode. They were actually almost in a state of starvation, and the barley our Arabs had provided for their camels, hastily pounded, husks and all, wet with water, and baked into a black loaf in the fire, was relished as a rare luxury. Yet even these rude fellows were not inaccessi

ble to one speaking their own language, and the second day I found myself gaining their confidence, and winning from them something like a feeling of complacency. Finding us curious about ancient ruins, one of them assured me that, in their country, on the left of the road to Mecca, there were many, and that if I would come to Muweilih, he would conduct me to them all.

From a branch of the other division of the Haweitat, inhabiting the mountains of Edom, we had five companions for four days on our visit to Petra. They were not more civilized than the others. Encountering a small company of the peasants on the way, they actually robbed them before our eyes; and, upon our remonstrating, they were much astonished, declaring that they had proceeded according to Bedaween law, and showed not the least sense of having done wrong. Still ruder specimens of Arabian wildness did we find in the neighbourhood of Petra. The Maazeh, driven from their own country of Hismeh, at a distance to the east of Akabah, by the prevailing drought, they were now pasturing their flocks on these mountains. We found one man tending his flocks, in company with a number of women, with not an article of clothing upon him, except a mere rag, some two or three inches broad. And yet even he had his matchlock on his shoulder, and a girdle furnished with ammunition about his loins; for you never

find a Bedaween without his arms. We seemed to have got far beyond the outskirts of civilization, and I could easily have imagined myself among the cannibals of the Indian ocean.

In the heart of mountains teeming with such barbarians, did we find ourselves, while examining the splendid ruins of ancient Petra. Such a prize as they deemed us to be, was not to be left unmolested. The morning after our arrival, they poured down upon us through the narrow glens that lead to the valley, until a little imagination might have fancied an armed Arab springing up behind every rock, and issuing from every tomb. Their actual number was about forty, all armed with matchlocks and swords. Their demand was nothing less than 1,500 piastres. In coming hither, I had calculated for the worst, and was not, therefore, taken by surprise. I felt no fear and exhibited none. By firmness of speech and mildness of manner, we escaped from their hands without losing a para. But it was the dread of the pasha of Egypt that saved us. We were travelling with a passport that bore his seal, and they feared to touch us. And nothing shows so strikingly the extent of his power, as the influence it sways over these wandering barbarians. Yet it is here but a feeble cord, easily burst asunder. Though the Bedaweens, in these mountains, all acknowledge their allegiance, the peasants to the north of Petra have been in successful rebellion for more than a year.

It was to escape from any violence which these robbers, disappointed of their prey, might attempt under cover of night, that we effected the long march already referred to. Petra is at no time to be visited without danger. But the greatest danger is not from the Arabs to be encountered there; it is from marauding parties in the Arabah valley. Several tribes on the west and east of that valley, as has already been mentioned, are hereditary enemies; and they are often crossing and re-crossing the Ara bah to fall upon each other. The very Arabs, who furnished us camels to Petra, had within two months made two successful expeditions against their enemies of the Dead Sea; and we narrowly escaped one party of five hundred dromedaries going eastward, and another largep arty coming westward, while travelling on the Arabah.

After reading the above account, you will not, I presume, expect me to recommend the speedy establishment of a mission in the mountains of Edom. Long, long, it is to be feared, will they remain under the prophetic curse.

(To be continued.)

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MISSIONARY MAGAZINE

AND

CHRONICLE;

RELATING CHIEFLY TO THE MISSIONS OF

The London Missionary Society.

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COTTON-TREE CHAPEL AND SCHOOL-HOUSE, JAMAICA.

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